


It's a Wonderful life... or is it?

by luxshine



Category: Backstreet Boys, NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-03-22
Updated: 2011-03-23
Packaged: 2017-10-17 05:28:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/173405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxshine/pseuds/luxshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Justin angers someone he shouldn’t have, and his life takes a strange turn for the worst in a world where no one remembers him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Too Anonymous

**Author's Note:**

> There’s a bit of a dejavu from Timberlake effect on this one. Namely, there was one last plot I wanted to make, and I couldn’t because there was nowhere where to put it. Dedicated to milosflaca, for everything, to musiclover03 for hearing me rant at nights, and to ravenbat for all those nightly chats. And of course, to otherdeb who is breaking the world record on speedy betaing despite me always missing those darn double n's.

Justin looked at the red headed girl who was happily eating his potato chips and wondered how a fan had managed to get through the security that surrounded his house.

“Who are you and how did you get in here?” he asked, walking towards her. To his surprise, she didn’t faint or scream her head off. She just put her feet on his coffee table and smiled.

“I’m D. I’m your guardian angel,” she said, turning on the tv. To Justin’s annoyance, the entertainment news was showing yet again the clip of Britney shaving her head. While he didn’t want to see her romantically ever again, it hurt him to see her so down on her luck. “And I’ve come here to show you something.”

“Sure you are,” Justin sighed and picked up his cell phone. “You can show whatever you want to the guards when they take you out of here.”

“That is not going to work,” the girl said, getting on her feet. She was really short, probably not taller than 5’2’’, wearing a pretty baby blue t-shirt, jeans, a white hoodie and sandals. “We need to talk, J.”

The phone didn’t have signal, so Justin walked towards the girl, grabbing her softly by the hoodie. He didn’t want to be rude to her, but there were some things that he couldn’t permit his fans to do. Breaking into his house and eating his food was one of those.

“*We* don’t need to do anything, ‘D’,” Justin said, trying to keep his voice calm but unable to stop a little mocking from his tone. He was not going to lose his cool with a fan. “*You* need to go home.”

“J, listen to me. This will be quick, you only need to relax a little. It’s like, my job to show you this stuff,” the crazy fangirl insisted, trying to stay on the ground. But she was too light, and so when he grabbed her again, he lifted her a couple of inches in the air. Like a ragdoll or something. “Put me down!”

“Only if you promise to leave now,” Justin said, feeling uncomfortable about manhandling the girl.

“I told you, I need to show you something!” the girl was moving so much that Justin lost his grip and she fell to the floor, falling on her ass, in the most undignified way possible. Justin couldn’t stop himself, and laughed.

“Girl, you really need to go home before I call the cops,” he said, between laughs. She just looked funny, her red hair all disheveled from the fall.

“Don’t you laugh at me!” the girl yelled, getting up her feet. “I hate when people laugh at me!”

 _And I bet that happens a lot when you break into their houses calling yourself their guardian angel,_ Justin thought, but decided not to express that thought out loud. Instead, he tried to calm himself. He could deal with a crazy 16 year old. He had done it in the past.

“Ok, you said you wanted to show me something. If I let you, will you leave?” he asked, in what was his best ‘I really don’t think you’re crazy’ tone.

“I don’t break into people’s houses,” the girl answered, trying to get the dust out of her jeans. “And yes. Just let me show you this and I’ll leave.”

She put out a DVD case from her bag – a bag that Justin hadn’t even noticed before – and walked to the TV set. That right there was more than enough proof that the girl was insane. Guardian Angels surely didn’t carry DVDs on their backpacks.

“So, has there like, been a time in your life where you think you made the wrong decision?” She put the DVD on the player and turned to see him with the nicest, most eager smile he had ever seen.

“No,” he shrugged. “My life is perfect, I don’t second guess myself.”

“Oh, come on!” the girl said, almost pleading. “You must have something. You know, like, not going back to *N Sync, or breaking up with Britney or…”

“I did the right thing every time, girl,” Justin interrupted. “There’s nothing you can show me I don’t know, so I don’t think we should lose more time. Go away.”

“But there must be something you regret! I wouldn’t have been sent if you didn’t!” the girl yelled, confused. “Don’t you lie to me!”

“I’m telling you the truth,” Justin laughed again. “So why don’t you just go? I won’t press charges against you.”

“Oh, please, Justin!” The girl didn’t seem to get the idea that she should leave. “You can’t tell me you don’t miss your friends!”

“Oh, the guys. That’s it, isn’t it?” Justin shook his head, no longer amused. “You’re one of those fans who blame me because they’re not doing anything, aren’t you? Listen, and please, understand. It is not **my** fault that JC’s current managers suck and dropped the ball regarding his career. It is not **my** fault Joey and Chris want to bury their careers in reality TV, and it’s most definitely not **my** fault that Lance came out! Is that clear? They have their own lives, I have my own, and everything is perfect that way!”

“Perfect?” The girl didn’t seem to believe it. “You are 26 years old, famous, rich, and are taking your **mom** to award ceremonies! Your first serious girlfriend is having a nervous breakdown on national TV and the only time you talk to your ‘closest’ friends is when you’re doing promotion for your projects! Does that seem perfect to you?”

“Go away. You’re starting to bother me,” Justin repeated, walking to the door. “I’m going to go and fetch the guards. If you’re still here when I come back, I will press charges.”

“You just have no patience at all!” The girl looked angry, and Justin took a step back. Not for the first time, he wondered why he had listened to her for so long. Humoring crazies was not a good idea. “How can you live with yourself? No, no… How can anyone live with you?”

“Girl, I don’t think…” Justin started saying, walking slowly towards the door, without taking his eyes from her.

“Don’t!” she interrupted, raising her hand. “Just don’t, ok? I’ve had it with you. I tried to be nice, I tried to be patient, and I was going to be nice with you. Just show you a nice future, your true love and all that jazz. Now? You’ve pissed me off. And I just decided that even **my** life would be much better without you around.”

That didn’t make Justin feel any better. But the girl didn’t move closer. She just raised her right hand and snapped her fingers twice.

“Enjoy the new world, JT. Bye, bye,” she said, smiling, as she snapped her fingers one last time. “ **Bye.** ”

And everything went black.

* * *

When Justin opened his eyes again, he was still in the living room.

At least, it looked almost like a living room. And he wasn’t tied up or hurt and there was no sign of the strange red-haired girl.

Justin got up from the floor, looking around. He didn’t recognize the furniture around him, but something told him it was his living room. At least the walls still were where they were supposed to be.

“I don’t know who the fuck are you or how did you got here, but don’t move, security are on their way.”

Justin turned around at the voice, since he recognized it well. It was hard to forget the voice of the ex-friend who had been using your fame to promote himself while sleeping with your girlfriend.

“Wade,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I thought you had gone back to Australia. Why did you bring me here?”

“I have never seen you in my life,” Wade said, looking at Justin with the same careful expression one had when approaching a large dog, or someone with a weapon. “And I have no idea how you got into my home.”

“Wade, don’t be an idiot. Its not funny,” Justin shook his head, tired. “Just tell me where the fuck we are, so I can go home.”

“Wade? What’s wrong dear?”

Again, the voice was familiar to Justin. He couldn’t stop himself from looking at the stairs, where, half hidden by a column, wearing a beautiful baby blue robe and looking far better than she had done in the last year, her long blond hair seemingly shining under the ceiling lights, was Britney. The girl he still loved, despite everything.

“Britney? What are you doing with him?” And the old rage resurfaced, the same rage he’d felt the day when he’d found his girlfriend and his best friend together in the house he had bought with her.

He missed the nervous look that Wade sent Britney, but he didn’t miss the way Britney took a step back. She was afraid of him, which was stupid because no matter how much Justin hated Wade for what he did, he would never hurt Britney

“Brit? It’s me, Justin… what’s wrong?” he asked, taking one step towards her. She took a step back, against the wall, looking truly scared.

“Don’t move!” It had been a needless warning, coming from the security guard that now was entering the living room. Because Justin hadn’t even thought about moving when he saw Britney’s scared eyes.

There wasn’t any recognition in them. She had no idea who he was.

* * *

They arrested him for breaking and entering the Robsons’ house.

It made no sense to Justin, He had been taken away in a police car, and he hadn’t resisted because he couldn’t just dismiss that look in Britney’s eyes. If Britney had recognized him, Justin could’ve believed it was just a very bad joke, but she hadn’t. And Justin knew she wasn’t that good an actress.

Justin remained silent in the car, thinking about what had just happened. No one seemed to recognize him. When he was booked, and he told them that his name was Justin Timberlake, there hadn’t been any jokes about it, any comments, none of the officers asked him for his autograph.

It was getting scarier by the minute.

They put him in a holding cell, where Justin proceeded to stay as far away from the other inmates as he could. He didn’t belong there, he had no idea how he had gotten to that point, but he was smart enough to realize that starting screaming that was a very good way to get in even more trouble. They had taken his possessions before locking him in, and all he had now were keys to a house he had no idea of the location of, two hundred dollars in small bills and coins, and the shirt on his back.

Justin had tried to use his one phonecall to call his mom, but her phone number had been disconnected.

It was early in the morning when one of the cops that had arrested him came to get him. Apparently, Mrs. Spears-Robson had decided not to press charges, since he hadn’t had a weapon on him. If he got near her again, however, he would be charged. Justin just nodded, signed the papers for his discharge and left, not knowing what to do with himself.

His mom’s phone was no good. And, deep inside, Justin didn’t know what he would do if she didn’t recognize him. That left his friends, and there weren’t many he could trust to help him if they had forgotten him.

JC could, in all honestly, give shelter to someone he barely knew, but Justin had no idea where JC was at the time. Somewhere between LA and New York, trying to garner some interest in his album now that Jive hadn’t shown any. Lance would be a bit harder to convince, except that Justin **really** didn’t know where Lance was, and he was pretty sure that if a total stranger – who was quite hot if Justin said so himself – approached Lance, his friend would think he was being hit on.

Joey would be easier. Justin could even tell Joey that he was an old friend from high school, and pray for Joey to believe him. But Joey was on _Dancing with the Stars_ the last Justin knew, so he wouldn’t be home and Justin seriously doubted Kelly would let a stranger stay with them, not when she was alone with Brihana.

That left Chris.

Justin sighed, sitting on the steps outside the station. If by some stroke of luck Chris remembered him, Justin would be ok. But since no one recognized him, or his name, Justin knew that he couldn’t count on Chris knowing him.

And, if Chris didn’t remember him, Justin didn’t know what to do. Chris was pretty supportive with new groups that he met somewhere, and let total strangers stay on his house for months just to help them get on their feet. But Justin’s situation was quite different. He had no friends, no references, and only two hundred dollars in his pocket.

If Chris couldn’t help him, Justin was lost.


	2. Effort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justin tries to rebuild his world.

Justin had $190 in his pocket when he realized that he was completely lost.

One dollar (plus tax) had been used to get the cheapest breakfast possible at McDonalds. The rest had been used to get to the closed community where Chris lived.

He hadn’t managed to get past the door when a guard stopped him.

“I’m looking for Chris Kirkpatrick’s house,” he said, trying to sound confident even when he was aware that Chris wouldn’t even know him. “I’m an old friend of his.”

“Sorry, man, you got the wrong address,” the guard answered, gently. It was the tone Justin had heard his own bodyguards use when they had to dismiss fans. “There isn’t any Kirkpatrick living here.”

That’s when it hit Justin. If **he** wasn’t a famous singer, if no one had ever heard the name Justin Timberlake, even as an old member of the MMC, then Chris had never invited him to be a member of *N Sync. *N Sync probably didn’t exist, so all the things he had taken for granted wouldn’t be there.

Chris was probably giving therapy to some overworked businessmen somewhere in Pennsylvania while Justin was coming to terms with the non-existence of the life he had called his own. Lance surely was still in Mississippi, deep inside his closet, not even knowing that he could’ve been amazingly famous.

The only ones Justin could think might still have their old lives were JC and Joey. JC, because Justin couldn’t imagine JC away from the music business and Joey, because Joey just had been with Kelly forever. He had only waited to marry because of the band. Without *N Sync, Joey probably now had 6 kids.

He walked away from the gated community, not wanting to spend any more money. With every step, the grim reality of his situation hit him harder. His only talents lay in the music business, which was not easy for new comers with no connections. He had finished high school, yeah, but it had been the bus school variation, and his diploma was still in that other reality. He had no identification, no way to prove that he existed.

Justin sat on the sidewalk, sighing. He had no idea what to do next.

$190 wasn’t much. He could, theoretically, try and stretch it for a week, maybe two if he found a really cheap place to stay. Chris had told him it was possible, but Justin had never been raised like that. All his life, he had a roof over his head, more than enough money in his pocket, and his mom.

His mom.

Lynn’s phone number in Orlando was disconnected. There was the possibility that his mom wasn’t in Orlando but in Tennessee, and how the fuck would he get there? More importantly, what if there was a **him** there, a Justin that had never been famous, never been a mousketeer, never been in *N Sync.

What if his mom didn’t recognize him?

Those were very good reasons not to go to Tennessee.

$190.

He could spend up to three nights, maybe a week, in the cheapest hotel he could find. But after that, he would be broke, and he still needed to eat.

“I’m not going to do anything just sitting here,” he muttered, getting up form the sidewalk. He still had no idea what he was going to do, but he wasn’t going to sit down and wait for fate to kick him again.

He was Justin Timberlake. Even if no one else remembered him, it was the one thing that the crazy red-haired girl couldn’t take from him. He still remembered his platinum records, his top selling concerts, *N Sync, and the MMC. All that was real, and he was going to find a way to get it back.

* * *

That had been his plan until he passed next to a newsstand. He only glanced at it, skipping past the magazine covers when he saw one that had Brian Littrell and Nick Carter smiling together. The newspapers, however, made him stop. One of the main news of the day claimed that the Michael Jackson trial was starting, practically claiming his guilt. The date over it, in small black type, proclaimed it was March 1st, 2005.

Whatever had happened had also sent him back in time. That sort of explained Britney’s looks. She hadn’t had her nervous breakdown yet. And maybe in this particular timeline, she never would.

After that discovery, Justin spent most of the day wandering aimlessly, and by the time it was starting to get dark, he was standing in front of an old diner that looked like it had seen better days some time around Elvis’s first radio hit.

The menu on the window promised a full four course dinner for only four dollars, however, so that meant that Justin could eat and not lose much money.

He went in, trying not to feel disappointed when no one sent a second glance in his way. He was a nobody, someone easily forgotten. Inside, the diner looked a bit worse than outside. The wallpaper had pieces missing, there was one broken lightbulb next to the bathroom doors, and even the tv mounted on the wall looked way past its prime. Justin wouldn’t be surprised if it was a black and white model.

“What will it be, sugar?” the waitress asked him. She was a woman in her late forties, dying her hair red as to hide the grayness that Justin could see in her roots. Her nametag read “Diana” and that she was happy to serve him that day.

“I’ll have the four dollar special, please,” he muttered, lowering his eyes. Diana’s eyes reminded him of his mother, and a sudden wave of sadness hit him. He missed his mom.

“Pasta, soup or rice?” Diana asked him, still cheerful. “I got to tell you, Andy’s rice is the best in the city.”

“Rice, thank you,” Justin said, not looking at her. He didn’t want to cry in public.

The rice was good, and meatballs and baby carrots, which wasn’t the best dish Justin had ever eaten, tasted like ambrosia.

“You ok there, sweety?” Diana came to pick up his dish and refill the glass of lemonade that was included in the meal.

“Not really,” Justin shook his head. “I… I’m having a bad day.”

That was an understatement, but Justin didn’t know how he could explain how bad his day was without sounding insane.

“Everyone has one of those once in a while,” Diana sounded worried, and Justin looked at her. She looked honestly concerned for him, and that was the last straw for him. After a whole day of being seen as if he was nothing, hearing her compare what he was going through with just a bad day was just too much.

“I barely have money to survive the week, I lost my whole life today, because even though I know my name, and I’m pretty sure I remember my family and my friends, they don’t remember me at all, so my memories could be wrong. What if I lost my memory and what I think is my life is just a hallucination, I have no where to go and no idea of who I am, so I seriously doubt that everyone has a day like mine once in a while,” he said, not even pausing to breathe. It was only when he had said it aloud that the reality of his situation hit him. “I’m lost.”

“How old are you, sweety?” Diana asked him, still in that same concerned tone, as she sat on the empty chair next to him.

“Twenty-six,” Justin answered automatically, before shaking his head. He was not in 2007. “Twenty-four.”

“Do you have a place to stay?” She asked again, softly touching his hand. Justin just shook his head, not trusting his voice.

Diana got to her feet again and walked to the kitchen, while Justin tried to regain control of his emotions. He was lost, that was true, but he could find himself. He just needed to find the red-haired crazy girl.

She had broken his life, she could put it back together again.

“Sweety?” Diana came back, accompanied by a thin, tall man with glasses so thick they could’ve doubled as bottle bottoms. “This is Andy, Andy, this is… Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Justin,” Justin answered, offering his hand to Andy. “Justin Timberlake.”

It was still painful when the name didn’t bring any recognition to the man’s eyes.

“Dee here says you need a job,” Andy said, studying him intently. “And a place to stay.”

Justin nodded, dumbfounded. Diana didn’t even know him. He was sure she had only been making conversation to be polite.

“I can’t pay much, but I need a dishwasher, so I can offer you a deal,” Andy said, after a long pause that was interrupted when Diana elbowed him, “I have a room upstairs. I’ll be truthful, it’s just four walls, a bathroom and a bed. I can’t rent it, since it looks like an infestation waiting to happen, but it’s clean. So I’ll pay you two dollars an hour for the dishes, and I’ll let you live there rent free. What do you say?”

“You… would do that for a stranger?” Justin asked, unable to keep the hope out from his voice. He had been starting to resign himself to losing half his money if he wanted to have a bed that night.

“Diana likes you,” Andy shrugged. “And that’s about all I can pay for a new employee without lowering Diana’s salary, so it works for both of us. If you take the job, that is.”

“I’ll take it,” Justin got up from his feet, and offered Andy his hand. At least, he could stay alive until he found the red-haired girl. “Boss.”

* * *

Andy hadn’t been joking when he said that the apartment upstairs was four walls and a bathroom. It had no carpet, only one window that looked out on an alley, an old stove that didn’t work, a bed that creaked and even though the bathroom was in a separate room from the rest of the apartment, it had no door.

A long way from the house Justin had bought with Britney.

Still, it was better than the street, and as the weeks passed, Justin started to grow used to it. There were mornings when he woke up and he expected to be sleeping on his king-sized bed, and all the fear and hopelessness he had felt that first day was forgotten until he saw the faded paint on the wall that had maybe once been blue. Other mornings, he woke up sort of happy with his life, and didn’t even think about all that he had lost until something as innocuous as a song on the radio reminded him of everything and then he had to excuse himself from Andy and Diana and go back to his crappy, rented apartment and cry.

He woke up at six, had a quick shower, got dressed and went down to help Andy get the diner ready for opening hours. He had used part of his remaining $186 to buy some used jeans and a couple of shirts, trying not to think that his savings were now only $50 and some change.

Andy let him have a small breakfast before opening, and he usually got dinner for free, too, as long as he helped to close down the place. All that allowed him to save his money for when he really needed it.

“Hey, Slim, can we count on you for tomorrow’s bowling?” One of the regulars, a burly man named Ralph, called him. Andy’s oldest daughter, Catherine, who was sixteen had once pointed out that Justin looked a bit like Eminem and the nickname had stuck. It had pained Justin a little at first, but now he was used to it.

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything, Ralph,” he smiled, coming out of the kitchen as he dried his hands. Sometimes, it scared him how much he had grown used to the normality of it all.

Two months had passed since the day when he had found the red-haired girl in his house, and his life had turned upside down. Two months, and now that he knew a bit more of the world without him, the **real** world according to everyone else, he still had troubles believing how everything had come to pass without him in the picture.

It made it harder for him to believe that he was right and his memories were true.

Take Britney, for example. She had been a mousketeer, of course, with Christina Aguilera. And she had gone on in her solo career, only this time, she hadn’t been romantically linked to anyone at all until her choreographer appeared in her life. Wade Robson, of course, and he had been quoted as saying that he had fallen in love with Britney the first time they had met, back in 1999. Ever since then, the couple had been together no matter how much the press wanted to link Britney with one of her dancers, a man named Kevin Federline.

Janet Jackson had flashed her nipple to everyone watching the Superbowl when her top ‘accidentally’ got stuck with the wire of her mike.

But that wasn’t the worst.

The worst was that *N Sync existed.

A week after she had started calling him Slim, Catherine had loaned him her old Eminem tapes. He had managed to get a very cheap tape player at a garage sale one weekend, and figured that music could make the long hours doing nothing pass quickly.

Even though he had been scared to death of Marshal Mathers, Justin admitted that Chris was right, and his lyrics were good. So he had put on the Marshal Mathers LP, curious to know who had been Eminem’s target this time,

 _“I’m not Mr. *N Sync, I’m not what your friends think  
I’m not Mr. Friendly, I can be a prick.”_

Justin had stopped the track immediately, heard the same lines until he was sure that he wasn’t making it up in his mind.

Eminem was really singing *N Sync’s name.

Trying to keep calm, Justin dug out another tape that had ‘the Real Slim Shady’ scribbled with Cath’s handwriting. He barely paid attention to the first nine tracks, until he heard the first beats of Without Me. He still remembered Chris’s phone call the day the single had been released. Chris thought it was hilarious.

 _“Chris Kirkpatrick, you can get your ass kicked  
Worse than them little Limp Bizkit bastards,”_

Chris’s name, rapped with hate, with distaste, but still… Chris’s name.

Chris wasn’t in Pennsylvania overcharging for psychological help. Lance wasn’t hiding inside his closet and business career down in Mississippi, Joey wasn’t just playing house with his girlfriend, and JC wasn’t trying to get back on the business after Memphis, and they had probably convinced Jason to stay with them. The group had formed without him.

That had been when Justin’s world had simply stopped.

He had spent the best part of a month trying to keep his hopes up. It was just like in that movie, Family Man. His guardian angel came down, showed him that his life could’ve better if he had zigged instead of zagged and, when he learned his lesson, whatever that was supposed to be, the girl would come back and put everything back in its right place.

But he hadn’t seen anyone who remembered him. He hadn’t been put in a happy house with his mom and no fame. He had been dumped in Britney’s living room, left to fend for himself.

Knowing that *N Sync existed, that **his** life had happened even without him in the picture, brought his old fears back. What he had said to Diana the day they had met came back to his mind in full force. He could’ve wrong, his memories could’ve just been fabrications made by his own imagination taking bits and pieces of the guys’ lives.

The idea that there was another lead singer in the group, someone who was not him, someone who had done all the things Justin remembered doing, was a possibility Justin didn’t want to consider.

At least, not yet.

* * *

The first time Justin’s life was pulled out from under his feet he hadn’t been ready. Not that he thought that anyone could be ready for having all his life turn out to be a dream

The second time it happened, he was even less ready. He had come to accept his new life, without money, without fame, and without the guys. He had friends. Andy, his wife Kelly, his daughters Cath and Heather, who came in occasionally to the dinner and had invited him more than once to have dinner at their house. There was Diana, who had been his life saver, and who more often than not came to his apartment with extra food, blankets, or clothes.

Justin didn’t know why Diana was so nice to him, why she had taken pity on him that day, but there wasn’t a day when he didn’t thank God for putting her in his path. Without Diana, Justin was sure he would’ve died long ago.

She had convinced him to go to a small community hospital in Eatonville, to see if they could help him with his amnesia. While he still hadn’t gone in, because he knew that the only thing a doctor could say after hearing his whole story was that he was insane, Justin was very grateful to Diana for thinking about his health. She also had the habit of reading missing persons reports, and she was determined to find if anyone was missing Justin.

In four months, Justin had more or less built a life, had a routine, and his only worry was how to get official identification that proved that he existed, even if it didn’t prove that a lifetime ago, he had been rich and famous.

And most of the time, he was happy.

One Sunday, Justin woke up with a smile in his face. Usually, on Sundays, he took the day off to go and look for his so-called guardian angel and ask her nicely to put things back as they were. He had looked for her everywhere, with no success. But as he had his breakfast, scrambled eggs and a glass of orange juice, he decided to stop looking.

He missed his friends, yes. He missed Chris’s jokes, JC’s deep way of saying things when it seemed as if he wasn’t really saying anything, Joey’s eternal optimism, and Lance’s determination to make things work. He missed talking with them, but he also knew that the reason why he missed them so much now was because now he couldn’t just pick up the phone and call them.

But four months was too long. More than one hundred days, waiting for just one little proof that he wasn’t insane, and that proof hadn’t come. The truth was that Justin was starting to believe that maybe he was one of those fans that he once had made fun of with Britney. The ones that really believed that they would stop their tour bus in front of their house, ring the bell and fall in love with them. He had probably done the same, constructed himself a fantasy life so real that it had overwritten the real one. A life where he was famous, loved, and rich.

Justin still didn’t believe completely that his memories were a lie, but he accepted that they **could** be. Somewhere, maybe in Tennesse, maybe somewhere else, his mom could be worried about him, waiting for him to appear. Or, since he was already old enough, maybe she just believed that Justin had packed up and left, searching for his fantasy.

Even if it wasn’t true, even if an angel had really come down and erased him, she wasn’t in a hurry to bring him back. And he couldn’t just keep living hoping to lose this life too. It was time to move on.

Convinced, he grabbed the tin can where he kept his money. He still had no way to get a bank account, so he had been saving every spare dollar in the can, praying that it wouldn’t get stolen. So far, after buying clothes, paying the light bill, water, and all the things he needed to survive, he had managed to save $500.

More than enough for what he wanted. He took S300 dollars from the can, put on his old jeans, the ones he had with him when it all started, a white wifebeater and his favorite gray hoodie, a gift from Diana. Justin figured that if he hurried, he could go to Diana’s house before it got dark. Diana’s birthday was on Wednesday, but her husband had invited all her friends for a surprise party that night.

The mall was half empty, so Justin went straight to the jeweler shop. He thought about how much he could spend, if he also wanted to get the gift wrapped, and so he wasn’t really paying attention to his surroundings, especially not when he bumped against a shorter guy in a leather jacket.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, not even turning around to see the guy he had bumped into. The guy said something, but Justin didn’t turn around. He wanted to see if Andy needed any help before going to Diana’s party.

“Hey dude, I think this is yours,” a familiar voice said behind him, and Justin turned around before he could stop himself. He opened his mouth, and closed it again because there were no sounds coming out from his throat, because it was 2005. The Chris in his memory had been starting to let his hair grow, was already on his third tattoo besides the *N Sync ones, and, according to Justin’s mom, looked as if he had no direction in his life. The Chris in front of him, however, still was wearing his hair short, held by a black bandana that let a few strands be seen. Some of those strands were dyed bright blue. He was still his usual tour weight, wearing a leather jacket that at first sight looked a bit baggier on Chris’s frame, as if it wasn’t his. He was wearing dark glasses that covered his eyes, a small thing that broke Justin’s heart a little. He remembered Chris’s idea of going incognito to a shopping mall usually only included a bandana and dark glasses, something that more than once had given management headaches.

Chris was offering Justin his wallet, the old ratty thing that Andy had given him with his first paycheck, and that Justin hadn’t noticed fall out off his pocket, but Justin couldn’t take it. His eyes were fixed on Chris.

“Dude? You all right?” Chris took a step towards Justin, taking off his glasses with his free hand. In his eyes, Justin could see that he was worried for him, but there was no recognition. Chris was only being nice to a stranger.

And despite his original decision not to think about what he lost, having the confirmation that yes, he had lost Chris’s friendship, he had been completely erased from his friend’s life, was too much for Justin.

His brain refused to keep thinking about the loss, about his old life, and Justin just fainted at Chris’s feet.


	3. Shock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justin finds out exactly how much the world has changed from what he knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge Hugs and dedicated to milosflaca who has always been there, even when I get computer withdrawal, and who very nicely pointed out who was the only one who could fulfill that “N” place in *N Sync. To musiclover03 and ravenbat because it’s fun to sleep late when you’re chatting , and to otherdeb who holds the record on betaing my damn double ‘n’s.

Justin slowly opened his eyes.

At first, he didn’t know where he was. He was vaguely aware that the light was coming from the wrong side of the room, so he couldn’t be in his apartment and he felt a spike of panic rise in his chest until he saw the white roof over his head. For some strange reason, the white tone calmed him a little.

“Oh, good to see you woke up, Mr. Timberlake,” A voice said next to him, and Justin turned to see a smiling nurse next to him. Justin frowned, as the events of the evening came back to him. His decision to live this life, no matter how bad it seemed. Wanting to buy Diana a gift.

Meeting Chris.

“Where am I?” Justin asked, even when he had a sneaky suspicion that he knew the answer.

“At Florida Family Hospital,” the nurse, whose nametag read Danielle, smiled at him. “You fainted at the mall, and were unconscious for an hour. We were starting to get worried.”

“I’m fine,” Justin smiled at her, and tried to get up. Only then he noticed the IV lodged into his arm. “I’d like to go home, please.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Timberlake, we can’t let you go until Dr. Straub sees you. We’re just waiting for your blood results,” Danielle was still smiling. Justin had seen that smile a lot of times when Lance had been in the hospital. It was the ‘we’re going to stick a lot of needles in your body’ smile.

Justin took one long look at the room he was in, obviously in the ER, but still a nice hospital. One that he couldn’t afford even if he washed dishes for twenty years. “I’m sorry, but I have no insurance. I can’t pay for my treatment. I don’t know how I got here, but I am very sorry to have wasted your time.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Timberlake, it’s all taken care of,” and now, Danielle’s smile was even more familiar to Justin. It was the ‘Oh my god it’s you!’ smile he had seen a thousand times in his old life. But it wasn’t really directed at him.

“How did I get here?” he asked, looking down at the sheet covering his legs.

“Your friend called an ambulance when you fainted.” And yes, that was the unmistakable tone of ‘Do you know Samuel L. Jackson?’ that Justin had come to know after years of being friends with people more famous than him. “He’s been waiting outside to see how are you.”

Justin bit his tongue. It would be easy to lie, to take refuge in his old life, even if it was just for a moment. But he had decided to leave that behind, and he was going to stick with it.

“I was alone at the mall,” he said, every word breaking his heart a little. “And I’d really like to go home, please.”

Danielle looked at him, honestly puzzled. “I’ll see if the doctor is coming.”

Once she left, Justin looked at the small needle on his arm, wondering if he could take it out by himself and just leave.

Justin smiled sadly, as he realized that now that he had found one of the guys, now that he had found Chris, the only thing he could think about was to get as far away as possible from him.

* * *

Justin was arguing with the doctor, an older man who looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but in the ER, when Chris came in. He had taken off his jacket, and now Justin could see that under the short sleeves of his Daddy Rockstar t-shirt, Chris hadn’t had his tattoos. The man in front of him wasn’t his Chris.

“The nurse told me you were worried about the payment,” Chris said, smiling at him “Its ok, I got it covered. You can stay and figure out what’s wrong with you.”

“I just fainted, I’m ok,” Justin said, avoiding Chris’s eyes. No matter how much his brain said that he was ok with not being recognized, his heart still was hurting.

“People who are ok, usually do not faint, M. Timberlake,” the doctor said, glaring. “And I’m afraid that your bloodwork shows that your blood sugar is very low, and you have a vitamin deficiency. I would like you to stay another night for observation.”

“I am fine,” Justin repeated. He knew, ironically because Chris had told him, that they couldn’t keep him in the hospital if he was conscious and didn’t want to stay. “I’d like to go, please. Even if it’s against your recommendations. I want to go home.”

“Whoa! Calm down, man,” Chris was quickly at his side, looking worried. “You just fainted and were unconscious for half an hour, you just can’t leave like that. Let the doctor look at you.”

Justin clenched his fists at Chris’s words. He appreciated Chris’s offer, but at the same time it hurt him to remind him what he had lost. The last time he had seen his Chris, he had been inviting Chris to one of his concerts. Chris had told him he wasn’t sure that he could make it, as he had a meeting or something about Sureshot, but Justin had pleaded, promised to pay for Chris’s airfare if he needed to fly that same night as long as he went to Justin’s show.

Chris had promised he would try.

That had been a week before everything changed.

Part of him, the part that insisted that everything would go back to normal as soon as he found the red-haired girl, wanted to lie. To tell Chris to mind his own business and leave him alone. It was ok if he insulted Chris now, he wouldn’t remember when things got sorted out. The rest of him, the bigger part that had pretty much given up hope and wanted to live as normally as he could resisted the idea. Chris had only tried to help a complete stranger.

“I can’t stay,” he mumbled, not looking at Chris’s eyes. “I can’t pay.”

Chris looked at him for a second before shaking his head. Justin knew that Chris wouldn’t try to force charity on him. Or at least, his Chris wouldn’t. But at the same time, Chris would be the one who wouldn’t stay satisfied until Justin was treated.

“Don’t worry about that,” Chris said, just as Justin expected him to. “Just stay for tonight.”

“I won’t sue you just because I fainted in front of you, don’t worry,” Justin insisted, feeling bad with himself for even proposing that Chris would be worried about getting sued. “I honestly can’t pay.”

“You fainted,” Chris repeated. If anything, he seemed more insistent that Justin had to stay. “And don’t worry, I brought you here, and since you didn’t have any identification, I covered it. It’s all right.”

“If you don’t want to stay, we can’t force you to,” the doctor said, in a tired tone of voice. “But I seriously advice against it.”

“I want to leave,” Justin repeated, pointedly not looking at Chris. “As soon as possible, please.”

* * *

Chris insisted on giving Justin a ride. While Justin couldn’t think of anything that would make him feel worse, he couldn’t think of any way of refusing without being a jerk. Which was why he was sitting in the passenger seat of Chris’s PT Cruiser trying not to look at his old friend.

They didn’t talk on the way. Justin was too immersed in his thoughts and to afraid of saying the wrong thing, and Chris seemed to be deep in his own thoughts. It was the most depressing ride of Justin’s life.

But he managed to keep the tears under control until he was alone in his apartment, with enough time to go to Diana’s party, even if he had no gift. Being with his new friends calmed a little of the pain he had felt when he had seen Chris leave.

Until three days later, when he came out from Andy’s kitchen with a new load of clean dishes to see Chris having breakfast and chatting amiably with Diana, as the diner was half empty.

“What are you doing here?” he asked Chris, after putting the dishes away. He was trying to forget and adapt, and Chris’s presence wasn’t helping him.

“I want to offer you a job,” Chris said, smiling at Diana. “The hospital contacted me about your blood tests.”

“What blood tests, Justin?” Diana looked at him worried. Some of the regulars who had become Justin’s friends turned around too, making Justin feel uncomfortable with all the attention.

“I fainted three days ago,” Justin confessed. “Chris took me to the hospital, that’s all.”

“Oh, Justin! Why didn’t you tell us?” Diana was worried, and that made Justin feel worse. That was the reason why he hadn’t said anything to her. He hadn’t wanted them all to worry about him just because he had fainted. He knew why he had fainted. It had been the shock of seeing Chris, and that was something he couldn’t explain. Not even to Diana, who was the only one who knew about his ‘amnesia’.

“I didn’t want to worry you, Di,” he said, sighing before turning his attention to Chris. “I told you, I’m fine. You didn’t have to come here.”

“You’re not even going to ask what’s in your blood that got the doctor so worried?” Chris pointed out. “Look man, I get why you didn’t want to stay, so that’s why I want to offer you a job. With medical insurance included.”

“No, thanks,” Justin said, turning around and going straight to the kitchen, trying to ignore Diana’s startled call.

There were no more dishes to clean, so he took his apron off and walked out, to the stairs that led to his small apartment. He sat, leaning on the wall, wondering what the hell was he doing.

Chris was offering him a job. It was a chance to be near Chris, probably near the other guys. Of course, it wasn’t the same as his old life, but it was something. Which was why Justin wasn’t too keen on the idea. How could he spend more than an hour with Chris without blurting out something about his old life? Then Chris would think he was mad, and Justin wasn’t sure he could deal with that.

The blood tests also scared him. Ever since he had found out that Britney cheated on him, Justin had become obsessive on having his blood tested at regular intervals. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Britney, it was that he didn’t trust her other partners. So far, there had never been any problems with them. But of course, that was in his other life.

If his blood tests were different in this life, Justin wasn’t sure what it could mean.

“You ok, Slim?” Andy asked, sitting down next to him. Not trusting his voice, Justin just nodded. “For what its worth, that fellow looks honest. Why don’t you take his offer?”

“You want to get rid of me, boss?” Justin asked, trying not to sound sad or disappointed.

“Not at all, kid,” Andy smiled at him. At times like this, Andy reminded him of Joey’s dad, who had always had good advice for them when the group was starting. “But he’s offering you something we can’t, and that medical insurance sounds like something you really need. Especially if you’re fainting.”

“It was only one time,” Justin began, before changing the subject. It was useless to keep defending his health. “I just... I don’t know why someone would offer me a job.”

“Well, I did it because Diana told me you needed it,” Andy pointed out. “And Diana asked me because you looked as if you needed a friend. I don’t know this guy, but he looks like the type to help just because he can help. Why not take him up on his offer? I’ll be honest, Slim. I like you, my kids like you, my wife loves you as much as she loves our kids. We’ll all will miss you if you stop working here. But we would all hate ourselves if you end up in the hospital just because you didn’t take a better paycheck than what we can give you.”

Justin looked up at Andy, his boss of four months and realized that Andy was honestly worried about him. “This guy could be a serial killer,” he said, even when he knew it wasn’t true.

“I doubt Cath would have a serial killer smiling on a poster in her bedroom. Well, now maybe, but not when she was thirteen,” Andy answered, smiling.

“You know who he is?” Justin asked, curious. Andy wasn’t the type to pay attention to pop music.

“You wouldn’t believe it seeing Cath now, but she was a very big pop music fan when she was twelve, I would’ve been a bad parent if I hadn’t paid attention to whom she swore would be the best man in her wedding.”

Justin laughed at that, blinking the tears away from his eyes.

And just like that, he was promoted from dishwasher to Chris Kirkpatrick’s personal assistant.

* * *

There were three conditions to his new job, as Chris explained them to him after Justin packed. Since Chris traveled a lot – it had struck as funny to Justin that during all this time, Chris still hadn’t mentioned what he did for a living, even if Justin suspected that it was pretty much the same thing he did in his own timeline – Justin would need to move Chris’s house, to be available at all times. That was, according to Chris, just so Justin wouldn’t believe that Chris was going to pay him for doing nothing. Condition number two was that Justin would go back to the hospital and get himself treatment. Not only his sugar had been low, he also had an iron deficiency and traces of anemia, which worried Justin so much that he decided to shove the knowledge into the farthest corner of his mind.

The third one was a huge non-disclosure agreement that Justin signed without reading. He was pretty much sure of what it said, since every single one of his own employees had signed one of those.

Much to Justin’s surprise, Chris lived exactly in the same gated community where he had looked for him four months before. The security guards at the gate, the ones that had told Justin that they didn’t know any Chris Kirkpatrick, didn’t seem to recognize him, and Justin felt a pang of anger against them both that was dissolved quickly. The guards had been doing their job, not letting an unknown person into the community, and that had led Justin to Andy’s dinner. In the end, it had worked out.

Chris’s house in this reality was almost the same as Justin remembered, at least from the outside. Instead of giving Justin a grand tour, Chris went straight to one of the guest rooms to let him get installed. The room looked recently cleaned, and Justin smiled sadly, as he recalled how Chris hated to have the house empty, inviting random bands to stay when they needed some help to start recording.

He never expected to find himself as the recipient of Chris’s generosity.

“Thank you for everything,” he said, putting the bag Cath had loaned him on the bed. “But I need to know… why? I mean, I’m a perfect stranger. Why are you being so nice to me?”

Chris opened his mouth but closed it again when the doorbell rang. “Hold that thought, and come with me. Time to start your new job. I’ve got a meeting with my group today, so I can introduce you to them before your doctor appointment.”

Justin raised his eyebrows and followed Chris, ‘Mr. Kirkpatrick’, from now on, he guessed, to the hall. He had always liked when his assistants called him “Mr. Timberlake”, he could do the same for Chris. As they passed next to the kitchen, Justin saw in the corner of his eye the shadows of the five marionettes hung from the ceiling under an archway. Five marionettes, and that fifth one still weighed on his heart.

“Lance! You’re early!” Chris said, as he opened the door and let Lance in. Justin took a deep breath and forced himself to smile.

“I’m not early, the others are late.” Lance was laughing as he hugged Chirs, and Justin took the opportunity to look for changes in his friend. Unlike Chris, Lance didn’t look that different, not with his brown Air Force t-shirt, and the white-sleeved shirt underneath, or his tanned glasses. Lance’s hair was still brown with blonde highlights, and he still looked as if he was getting ready to take over the world or, maybe, launch a small missile attack on some unsuspecting third world country. And he still was on top of everything, as Lance focused on Justin as soon as he let go of Chris. “Who’s your new friend?”

"Oh, you’ll be happy to know that I finally listened to you, Lance.” Chris motioned with his hand to Justin, who, trying not to look shell shocked, offered his hand to Lance. “I got myself an assistant. His name is Justin, Justin, this is Lance Bass, one of my bandmates.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bass,” Justin said, trying not to show any recognition. He still didn’t know if he would tell Chris the truth, but he was sure he couldn’t tell it to Lance. Lance would never believe him, not in this world, and, if Justin had to be truthful, not in the other.

Lance didn’t take his hand, looking at Justin with suspicion before turning to see Chris.

"Please, Chris, tell me you didn't pick him up because he was the first person you saw on the street." Lance’s tone was polite, but the underlining insult was obvious. Justin swallowed, trying not to answer. He didn’t know this Lance, and he didn’t know his history with this Chris, so maybe Lance had a good reason to be so distant with him.

"No, I picked him at the mall; they had a discount in personal assistants," Chris laughed, winking at Justin. “Seriously, Lance, it’s all right. Don’t bite Justin’s head off.”

Lance studied Justin one more time, making Justin feel as if he was in a the beauty pageant, being judged only on his looks. Finally, Lance’s expression relaxed.

“Hope you’re not wrong this time, Chris,” Lance said, offering Justin his hand. Taken aback, Justin took it, still trying to figure out if this was how Lance treated all strangers, even in the ‘right’ timeline, or if it was just that Lance didn’t like something about Justin. “You’ll sit in during the meeting, Justin?”

“Today is his first day,” Chris interrupted before Justin could answer. “I just want to introduce him to all of you and then he’s got the day free.”

Justin could practically hear the ‘to get himself to his doctor’s appointment on time’ that Chris didn’t say, so he just nodded. Now that he was getting used to the fact that he’d be seeing the guys every so often, he was curious to see how life without him had treated them.

Lance shoot one last suspicious look at Justin before start talking about Sundance and how he had spent four days with his friend Katie. As he spoke, walking towards the living room, Justin started getting the feeling that something was wrong. So far, the situation was pretty much like all of the post-*N Sync meetings they had, all ten of which had started with Justin arrived to see the guys talking about whatever they felt the others should know, but there was something in this one that Justin was missing -besides being included in the conversation.

Joey and JC arrived together, just as Lance was telling Chris that the Backsteet Boys were getting ready for their summer tour and that they had been invited to the first concert in the States. Neither of them had changed much from Justin’s mental image of his friends. Joey still had his eyebrow pierced, short hair. The one difference Justin could see, at least from the last time he had seen Joey on TV for Dancing With the Stars was that he looked thinner –just like Chris - and that his hair was highlighted bright red, just like it had been for No Strings Attached. JC on the other hand, was wearing his hair long, tied in a ponytail, with blonde and brown highlights but, other than that, he was so much like the JC Justin remembered that for a moment Justin had to fight the impulse to hug him.

Unlike Lance, Joey grinned at him when Chris introduced him as his new assistant.

“Good luck with that job, man,” Joey said, hugging a very startled Justin. JC just offered his hand, and when Justin took it, frowned.

“You look familiar, have we meet somewhere?” JC asked, studying Justin’s face.

“People always say I could pass for Eminem’s brother,” Justin answered, trying to kill the small hope that had blossomed in his chest. No one had recognized him in almost four months, there was no reason for JC to recognize him now. “My friends call me Slim.”

JC’s frown deepened, but then he smiled warmly. “Well, Slim, good luck trying to keep Chris’s schedule in order. You’re a brave man for even trying.”

“I only missed that one radio show because of the traffic,” Chris defended himself, interrupting his chat with Lance. “And I apologized the next day!”

“After you spent the day playing golf,” Lance finished, making it sound as if it was an old story among them. Justin allowed himself a nervous smile as he realized that if his mental math was correct, the next time the doorbell rang it would be Jason. He wasn’t sure he could face his replacement without fainting again, so he started bracing himself.

He didn’t want to end up back in the hospital, after all.

Joey offered to get some drinks for everyone, and Justin jumped at the chance to bring them himself. After all, Chris was paying him for being his personal assistant, and while Justin’s own personal assistant chores only had included keeping track of his fan mail and appearance’ schedule, Justin figured ‘bringing drinks to all my bandmates’ would also be in the job description. At least, it would give him something to do instead of wondering why the band was getting together in Chris’s house when his own memories were very clear that *N Sync hadn’t been together under the same roof in 2005, not until that year’s Challenge when they had decided that ‘temporary hiatus’ was not the exact word to describe what was going on with them.

He was in the kitchen, getting up what he remembered to be everyone’s favorite drinks, when the doorbell rang again. This is it, he thought to himself, picking an extra soda can for Jason. No use in delaying the inevitable.

Carefully balancing the five soda cans, Justin returned to the living room.

“Hey, thanks, Justin,” Chris said as soon as he saw Justin. He had his arm around the shoulder of a blonde man who had his back to Justin, but was turning around at Chris’s words. It didn’t really matter, as Justin knew him. It only took him two seconds to recognize him, as he was the last person he would’ve imagined present in a meeting with ‘Chris’s group’, especially as Justin figured that in 2005, he had to be busy touring with his own group. “This is…”

“Brian,” Justin barely managed to mutter, before his legs failed him and he fell to the floor at Chris’s feet for the second time that week.


	4. Routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justin starts figuring out what to do with his new life.

Justin slowly opened his eyes.

“Oh, good to see you’re back with us, Mr. Timberlake.” The voice was familiar, and Justin turned around to see nurse Danielle smiling at him. Justin bit back a groan, as her smile was a little more star struck than last time. “How are we feeling?”

“Confused,” Justin admitted. “How long was I unconscious?”

“A little less than an hour. You were getting everyone worried,” Danielle checked the IV drip that was logged in Justin’s arm, and pulled out a thermometer from her breast pocket. “Dr. Straub will be with you in a moment. Do you remember fainting?”

Justin nodded. He had brought the sodas for the group, seen Chris with his arms around Brian Littrell’s shoulder, and then the world had become blurry. Last thing he remembered was his head hitting the floor of Chris’ living room. Which was another problem on its own. “Is anyone out there waiting for me?”

And there it came again, that star struck smile that usually came with the ‘Oh, and how is Cameron doing?’ question. Only that this time, Justin knew that it wasn’t because of Cameron or any of her actor friends. It was because of his ‘boss’.

“Oh, yes.” In Danielle’s defense, she was being professional even though Justin could hear the emotion in her voice. “They’re waiting for you to wake up. I’ll tell them they can come in, is that all right?”

Not trusting his voice, Justin nodded. He wanted to apologize to Chris because if he had fainted, he had probably interrupted *N Sync’s meeting. He wanted to see his friends again, even if it hurt. Even if he really didn’t want to see Brian.

Danielle smiled at him as she left the small cubicle, and Justin had a moment to reflect on what was going on. There was a small chance that Brian wasn’t the fifth member of *N Sync, that he just happened to visit them when the group was having a meeting. But Justin knew that that was a very small hope. When they had group meetings, the ones he remembered, the only ones allowed in were Johnny, Theresa, and sometimes, Justin’s assistants. Chris had given him the day free so he wouldn’t be on the house during the meeting. No, Justin couldn’t fool himself. Brian had to be a member of the band.

“How’s that hard head of yours?” Chris entered the room, guided by Danielle who was managing to keep her professional demeanor, just barely. To Justin’s surprise, JC, Joey, Brian and Lance came behind him. They all looked somewhat worried, even Lance, who still was looking at Justin with suspicion.

“Better,” Justin half-whispered. “I’m sorry I made you come here again.”

“Again?” Lance interrupted before Chris could answer. “You didn’t mention that part, Chris.”

“Ok, so I met Justin when he fainted in front of me, that doesn’t mean he ain’t good for the job.” Chris winked at Justin and Justin forced himself to smile. He couldn’t help but understand Lance. If things had been different, if Chris had brought in an assistant that he had found causally at a mall, Justin would have also been asking for references and police records.

“You gave us quite a scare,” Brian said, coming closer to the bed. “I didn’t have the chance to introduce myself. I’m Brian Littrell.”

“Justin Timberlake,” Justin offered his hand to Brian, biting back the bile on his throat. He wanted to yell at Brian that he was in the wrong group, but he tried not to show it. Lance already thought he was dangerous. Justin didn’t want to make them think he was crazy on top of it. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s ok, it made for an interesting evening,” Joey said. “So, you come here often?”

“It’s just my second time at this particular hospital,” Justin said, not sure if he could add that Chris was paying for it. He was sure Lance wouldn’t appreciate knowing that little tidbit of information. “I try to avoid doctors.”

“And you do a terrible job of it,” Dr. Straub said, as he entered the room. “I’ll have to ask everyone who is not family to leave. Unless you want them to stay, Mr. Timberlake?”

Justin thought about it hard. On one hand Chris had the right to know since he was the one who was paying for all his treatment. On the other, Justin was very afraid of what the doctor would tell him; that somehow it would make everything around him ‘real’.

“Would you mind waiting outside?” Justin asked Chris. If Chris didn’t want to leave, Justin wasn’t sure what he would do.

“Not a problem, Slim. See you later.” Chris smiled, although there was something strange in Chris’s smile. The guys waved goodbye, told him to get better soon so he could start controlling Chris’s life and left. It was all too surreal for Justin, since he still didn’t know why Chris was being so nice.

Once they were alone, the doctor looked at him with weary eyes. “Mr. Timberlake, your sugar levels are a little better than four days ago, but you have a severe iron deficiency. Those facts, together with some observations made by the ER doctor when you were admitted have me really worried, but we need your medical history first. Can you tell me where have you lived for the last two years?”

Justin looked down at his hands. He could see how his skin looked different now, after four months of washing dishes. No one would believe that he had lived in a mansion in Orlando, much less that he had been the idol of millions. He had troubles believing that some days now.

“For four months I have lived on a small apartment just north the 408,” Justin said, not looking at the doctor. “I can’t tell you more than that. I don’t… I don’t remember anything before that.”

“You don’t remember?” Dr. Strauss sounded unconvinced. “What’s the first thing you remember?”

Getting thrown out of Britney Spears’ house. That was the first answer that came to Justin’s mind. But he knew that answer wouldn’t get him anywhere, so he just shook his head. “I was walking with no direction, and I found Andy’s Dinner. That’s where I got a job, and I lived there since then. I remembered my name, my last name, but that was about it.”

“Please, look this way,” the doctor put a small lamp in front of Justin, turning it on without warning. Justin fought the impulse of closing his eye as he knew the doctor would try to look for brain damage. They did that on movies a lot. “You remembered how to write and read? What day it was? Your parents name?”

“I can read and write, it was March 1st, but I knew that because I read it in a newspaper,” Justin answered, truthfully. It was easier than lying. “I have no idea if I have a family or where they are.”

“But you haven’t tried to find out where they are?” The doctor’s frown deepened. Justin tried to think fast, keep the lies believable. He had no interest in spending the rest of his life in a psychiatric ward.

“I know I’m 25 years old. Since I had no identification or anything on me, I guessed I hadn’t had one. Why do you ask me all this?”

“Mr. Timberlake, Justin, this is important. Were you living on the streets?” the doctor was getting ready to take Justin’s blood pressure, which had to be quite high as the doctor’s questions were making him worry. If his **life** was a lie created in his mind, then where had he been the 25 years he didn’t remember?

“No,” he shook his head. “I don’t think so. My jeans were expensive, I was clean, and I had $200 in my pockets. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t living on the streets. Why? What did your other doctor see?”

“There is some scarring on your back, which could’ve been from a fight. However, I think it will be better if we arrange for psychiatric services to check you as well as an MRI to ensure there is no brain damage,” Dr. Straub said, and Justin realized his attitude had warmed a little. He wondered what those scars were, and decided to check himself on a mirror as soon as he was out of the hospital. “We’re going to keep you for observation overnight, pending the MRI’s results. In the meantime, I’ve ordered to keep you on a glucose and iron IV. If the MRI doesn’t show anything, we’ll start exploring other options for your memory loss.”

“How long will I have to stay here?” Justin asked

“Only for tonight, for sure,” Dr. Straub smiled. “If the MRI is clean and we can normalize your blood levels, you’ll be discharged tomorrow.”

* * *

“So you’ve got Dissociative Amnesia?” Chris asked, the next day. Justin had been discharged under his care, once his blood sugar was leveled. The good news was that he wasn’t hypoglycemic, or diabetic. He had only been malnourished for years. That was the bad news, because Justin had never had an eating disorder. Unlike some of his friends, he dealt with weight by exercising and dancing a lot. That his body was suddenly showing signs of malnourishment was certainly bad news. “That sounds bad.”

“Sounds worse than it really is,” Justin shrugged. Chris had asked him to check his fanmail, which Jive forwarded to his house, and make sure everything got answered. So Justin found himself with a couple of boxes filled with letters and small packages, all pre-opened by someone at Jive since Chris only got his individual letters, not the ones for the whole group. Chris was sitting on a chair next to him, signing photos for answering the letters, apparently to finish giving Justin the directions he would need for the job. In reality, Chris seemed more interested in Justin’s health than in what Justin was going to do to repay for his medical bills. “I honestly don’t think about it much.”

“So you don’t remember anything of your life before Andy’s dinner?” Chris pressed again, while Justin put yet another one of the signed photos with the typed thank you letter they all used to answer their fans.

“Being lost in Florida,” Justin answered, as he opened one more pink envelope. He wasn’t really reading them, just checking the names. However, this one called his attention as it had a picture of Chris with a young woman, wearing an *N Sync’ concert T-shirt with the legend World Tour2004 across her chest. “And my name.”

“And Brian’s,” Chris pointed out casually. So casually, that Justin almost didn’t notice the suspicious note on his voice. “You said his name before you fainted.”

“I saw him on a magazine cover the first day I can remember,” Justin explained. It was the truth. “Him and Nick Carter. I try to remember everything since that day.”

Chris stopped signing, and looked straight at Justin. He had his serious face, the one Justin only saw away from the cameras, when Chris wasn’t interested in playing the ‘crazy hyper eight year old on sugar rush’ role. “You know they have cameras at the entrance of the community.”

Justin looked at Chris, remembering that first day when he had come looking for his friend. However, he was confused. If Chris was accusing him of being a stalker, why would he give Justin a job? A job that involved being near him, even. But then he remembered that he had been convinced that Chris could make everything better. Of all his friends, if anyone could help him, it would be Chris.

“I was confused,” Justin said, putting away the letters. “I didn’t tell Dr. Straub the entire truth because I know I was confused, and what I remember is not real. I just… I was trying to forget all that.”

“Forget what?” Chris looked very serious, and Justin sighed. He knew that telling the truth would get him a ticket back to jail, but then, he had never been to good lying to Chris. And Britney could still remember him from that first day at her house.

“It’s hard to explain,” Justin took a deep breath. “But I’ll understand if you want me to leave when I finish. Four months ago I was convinced my life was completely different, and that you were my friend since I was thirteen. I had this whole life built on false memories, and it took me a while to realize it was not the truth. I’m not crazy. I know I’m just a regular guy who can’t remember his real life.”

“That does sound crazy,” Chris nodded, thoughtful. “So you can actually remember everything in this other life you say you have?”

“I came to my senses in jail,” Justin said, feeling ashamed even when he knew that now it was the only way to salvage Chris’s offer of friendship. “Somehow, and I honestly don’t remember how, I broke into Britney Spears’ house. Her boyfriend called the cops, but they didn’t press charges. I tried to come here, yes, and I apologize for that. But when the guards told me you didn’t live here… I don’t know. That pretty much helped me to realize that my memories had to be wrong.”

“You don’t look like a deranged fan,” Chris said, very slowly. “I mean, I was a little surprised when Greg showed me the videotape from that morning, after I hired you. A stalker would’ve jumped at the chance, and you had to be convinced to even talk to me.”

“Am I fired?” Justin asked, looking at the small mount of letters he still had to answer.

“Are you going to tie me up in my basement and force me to sing *N Sync’s first album until my throat goes raw?” Chris asked instead of answering. He was smiling, and that eased Justin’s fears.

“I liked No Strings Attached better,” Justin smiled back, before looking down at his hands. “You did made a record called No Strings Attached, right?”

“Second album,” Chris assured him. “But you know that, right?”

“I’m not even sure that what I remember as the group history is right,” Justin said, getting back to the envelopes. “I thought Brian was in a rival group.”

“Our B-rock in a rival group?” Chris laughed, looking honestly amazed. “Which one? LFO? O-Town? 98°?”

“Backstreet Boys,” Justin said. Part of him, that small part that held to the hope of going back to his own reality, that was still holding out for any explanation of his sudden shift in time, hoped that Chris would recognize the idea. That he would believe him that it was true.

“Makes sense,” Chris nodded, surprising Justin. “He could’ve been a Backstreet Boy, he had even come here to join them. I wonder where did you got the ‘rival’ stuff from, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see,” Chris shook his head enigmatically “You’re not fired, and I don’t think you’re a crazy stalker. If you don’t want me to, I won’t mention anything about your amnesia to the guys either.”

“Nah, it’s all right,” Justin smiled sadly. He spoke slowly, picking his words carefully to avoid any slips. “I’d rather not let Mr. Bass know about that fantasy life I had, he doesn’t seems to like me much anyway, so I’d hate to give him more reasons to hate me.”

“Wait until we go on tour,” Chris punched him playfully on his shoulder. “Then Lance will see you’re not a mole set by the press.”

It took Justin ten minutes before he realized that Chris’s words meant that *N Sync was still active. And despite himself, Justin smiled. Maybe it wasn’t the same as he remembered, but the one thing he had really missed the last four months was being around his friends.

* * *

Ten days later, Justin was amazed at his own adaptability. He had an appointment with Dr. Straub every three days, where he was happy to find out that they were getting his sugar and blood iron to their right levels, even if his memory was still a mystery. Dr. Straub theorized that his amnesia was possibly the result of a traumatic event, but that it was possible that, in time, the memories would come back on their own. Keeping track of Chris’s schedule wasn’t as hard as everyone had made it seem, and with the three cell phones that now he carried – his personal one, bought by Chris to keep in touch with Justin, the one Chris had to deal with Jive, and the one Jive had provided for the occasional phone interview – and the palm pilot that Chris had insisted Justin needed, he had everything under control. He still avoided the marionettes’ room, and had gone great lengths not to find anything about the group’s history in this particular timeline, but despite that, he was starting to enjoy life again.

He was coming back from having breakfast with Diana, as he had promised the older woman he would keep in touch, and ready to start working on the next batch of fan mail until Chris needed him, when Lance’s angry voice called his attention.

“Chris, I just don’t’ get you. Why is this Justin still living here?” They were in the meeting room, and the only reason why Justin could hear them was because of the huge window on the north side. They had probably opened it to let some air in, and forgot that it carried the sound perfectly to the kitchen, where Justin was sitting.

“Because with his salary, he can’t rent a house here,” Chris answered, making Justin chuckle. “And it wouldn’t be practical to have my personal assistant live three hours away from my house.”

“Chris, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you don’t even know where he came from!” Lance insisted. His tone made it clear to Justin that it wasn’t the first time he and Chris had that argument. He decided to stop the pretence of reading Chris’s fanmail, and simply started to pay attention. So far, he hadn’t crossed more than a handful of words with this Lance, but he knew Lance, and he knew that there had to be a very good reason for him to be so set against Justin being Chris’s personal assistant. Justin hoped that it wasn’t just because, to Lance, he was a nobody.

“I know that he’s a good guy and that’s more than enough for me,” Chris said, tiredly. “Now, can we go back to the single?”

“I think Justin is all right.” It took a few seconds for Justin to recognize Brian’s voice. “And let’s be honest Lance, what do you expect Chris to do? Let him lying on the mall floor?”

“I’m just saying that Chris should be a little more careful, all things considered,” Lance sounded even angrier now. It reminded Justin a little of that last argument when the group had still been together, when Lance had defended Justin’s decision of not getting back together.

“Lance, I don’t get it,” JC sounded clearer than the rest, so Justin figured he was next to the window. “You had been telling Chris he needed an assistant. There isn’t that much difference between Justin and Jesse.”

“And you know Jesse hasn’t been working for me for about six months now, JC,” Lance said, defending himself. “There’s a reason for that.”

Justin closed his eyes, trying to remember why Lance had stopped talking about Jesse, but he couldn’t remember Lance ever mentioning the reason it had happened. Later, when Lance had called Justin to tell him that he was gay, and coming out, Justin had added two and two and figured out the reasons by himself.

He got up to close the window; sure he didn’t want to hear anything more, when the buzzer for the front door rang.

“Hey, Greg. Mr. Kirkpatrick is in a meeting,” Justin said on the intercom. It was strange, how he now was friendly with the same guard who had sent him away the first day. It was also easier to call his former friends by their last names now. That made him a little sad. “Can I help you?”

“I just wanted to give you a heads up, Slim,” Greg answered. He had the same misgivings about Justin as Lance, until Justin invited him to Sunday Bowling with Andy and the guys. “Chris’s guests just crossed the gate.”

“I’ll let Mr. Kirkpatrick know. I think he forgot they were supposed to come over,” Justin said, trying to keep his breath even. He had completely forgotten that Chris had told him he was hosting a group meeting with the Backstreet Boys that day, as they were supposed to do a joint show for the VMA’s that year.

“I’m not telling you so you won’t faint when they come,” Chris had told him, a week before when he had handed Justin the palm pilot. “It’s because I’m paying you to keep my schedule in order.”

“I know, Mr. Kirkpatrick, I promise I won’t faint,” Justin smiled. Chris had become very curious about what Justin called his ‘fake’ life, but Justin was reluctant to share. Just as he didn’t call Chris by his name because, as he had explained the last ten times Chris had asked to be called just Chris instead of Mr. Kirkpatrick, it helped to keep Justin grounded in reality.

“Well, you will have to tell me if the Boys are really that different without Brian,” Chris joked, and that had been it.

Almost a week later, Justin had been so comfortable in his new life, that he had forgotten that he was about to meet his old rivals. And now he could admit that he was curious to see them.

Every day, his old life seemed more like a dream, and he was starting to feel happy about that.

* * *

“So, you’re Chris’s new victim,” Kevin Richardson was the first one to speak when Justin introduced himself. Chris had asked him to entertain the Backstreet Boys while they wrapped their own group meeting, which Justin assumed meant finishing arguing about Justin’s living arrangements and deciding on one single to be released in just fifteen minutes. The group didn’t look any different from Justin’s memories, even with the addition of a different member instead of Brian. “Pleased to meet you. I hope you last longer than your predecessor.”

“Mr. Kirkpatrick didn’t mention a previous assistant,” Justin said, still taken aback by Kevin’s friendliness. Even after the feud had ended, his Kevin had always been very distant with Justin and the guys. “How long did he last?”

“Three hours,” Howie laughed, trying to hide his smile behind the glass of iced tea that Justin had given him. “Give or take.”

“So, where did you meet Chris?” AJ asked, looking at Justin as if he were a very interesting bug under a microscope. “You a rock singer or something? We heard he was thinking about making a solo album like Brian and Nick did.”

“Nothing like that,” Justin shook his head, trying to keep his nerves under control. “Chris knew I needed a job, and he was kind enough to offer me one.”

“And you met him where?” Nick insisted, sitting on the couch’s back behind Howie. And if AJ made him feel like a bug, Nick made him feel like he was facing his girlfriend’s parents. He was almost as terrifying as Lynne Spears, and that was saying something.

“More important, when did you meet him?” Sam, the fifth member of the group and the only one who was a complete stranger to Justin, interrupted before Justin could answer. “Chris hadn’t mentioned you before, and he usually talks a lot about all his friends.”

“A couple of days before he hired me,” Justin answered, truthfully. He was starting to think that he would rather have a short man to man talk with Lance than be grilled by the Backstreet Boys. “He is a very generous man.”

“That he is,” Howie agreed. He and Kevin seemed to be the only ones who weren’t actively intimidating Justin. “Are you from Orlando?”

“I was born in Tennesse,” Justin said, biting down the ‘I think’ that came to his mouth first. He had to be careful not to slip and make them suspect his story. “But I’ve lived here in Orlando for as long as I can remember.”

Which wasn’t a lie, technically speaking.

“You got any family here?” AJ asked again, and this time there was no doubt about his tone. Justin was being subjected to a test, and he had no idea how to pass it.

“Hey, stop harassing my new friend,” Chris said, coming down the stairs, being followed by JC, Joey, Brian and Lance. “Or I’ll have to stop letting you out of the basement.”

“Consider it revenge for getting our latest PR to quit after you told her the story about Nick, AJ, JC and the Corvette,” Kevin answered, not missing a beat. “You guys are late.”

“I thought you were early, cuz,” Brian said, hugging his cousin. “You all finished interrogating Slim?”

“Slim?” AJ lowered his dark glasses in that ‘I can’t believe I just heard that’ way he had. “Yeah, I see why they call you that.”

“Do you want me to bring something for everyone to drink, Mr. Kirkpatrick?” Justin asked, trying to ignore the way in which AJ kept focusing on him.

“Nah, Justin, we’re fine,” Chris clapped him on the back. “We’ll probably be at this all afternoon, so I’ll call you if there’s anything we need.”

That was Justin’s cue to leave, and as he left the living room, he shot a new glance towards the two bands. They looked quite friendly, and Justin wondered how that had happened.

Maybe, he conceded, it was time to listen to Chris and start comparing this reality with what he remembered.


	5. Facts and Fiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justin starts finding the pieces of the puzzle that is his ‘real’ life.

For the first time in his life, both now and the one he didn’t remember, Justin didn’t want to go to the Video Music Awards’ ceremony.

Unfortunately, as Chris’s personal assistant, he was supposed to go. As Johnny Wright told him at the last meeting of *N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, ‘Someone has to make sure that Chris is on time for once in the year’. Even if all that Justin did was stay backstage and watch the show, he had to be there.

“Why don’t you want to go?” Chris asked casually one afternoon. *N Sync’s group meeting had ended an hour before, and Justin was once again, on answering fan mail duty. Some days, it looked like it was the only thing he did.

“Miss Spears will be there,” Justin answered truthfully. Around Chris, he rarely lied. “I don’t want to scare her.”

“We could warn her, explain everything to her,” Chris offered. ”If she sees that you’re better, it will be all right.”

“It’s not just that,” Justin confessed, closing down the last envelope of the day. He looked at Chris and reached a decision. He needed to confide in someone, and so far, Chris hadn’t let him down. “I was in love with her in my other life.”

“Wanna talk about that?” Chris asked, and his tone made Justin remember that his Chris had studied psychology. And that probably, this one had too.

“I don’t know.” Justin shook his head. “I want to get on with my life and forget the fantasy. But since the fantasy life is all I have for a past… I don’t want to lose that. I know it’s fake, but it’s the only past I have.”

“You haven’t told your doctor about the fantasy life, have you?” Chris asked. “He still thinks all you have is amnesia.”

Justin nodded. He didn’t know where Chris wanted to go with those questions, but he had trusted his Chris, and this Chris hadn’t led him wrong so far.

“It really doesn’t sound just like an insane fantasy, you know? I mean, it makes some sort of sense that you made Brian be on the Backstreet Boys, since he’s Kevin’s cousin,” Chris kept on. “And you gave yourself Brian’s place. Only you weren’t married to Leighanne, were you?”

“I wasn’t even married.” Justin smiled sadly. “I had recently broken up with my second girlfriend last I remember.”

“Wait,” Chris interrupted, laughing. “You were part of one of the last boybands standing, platinium records on your walls, Grammies and movie deals, and you only had two girlfriends in all your life? No wonder you took Brian’s place. Hate to say you this, Slim, but your fantasy life sucked.”

Justin blinked, not at Chris’s words because they were an eerie echo of his own Chris’ jokes (J, even if you’re bringing “sexyback”, you live like a monk) but because he still hadn’t told Chris that in his fantasy life, in his perfect life, *N Sync didn’t exist anymore.

It was embarrassing, and painful.

“So, two girlfriends and that was it?” Chris kept going, either missing or ignoring Justin’s blink. “I’m going to take a wild guess here and say that Britney was one of them. The first, probably.”

Justin didn’t answer, but he felt his face blush.

“I meet her at the MMC,” he said, after a long and embarrassing silence. “I used to say she was my first love.”

Chris didn’t say anything after that, but Justin knew he was planning something. No matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, he knew Chris very well.

* * *

Despite all his misgivings, Justin ended up at the VMAs working as Chris’s assistant. Every single one of his excuses were dismissed by the group. He had even got a new outfit out of the deal, a Dolce and Gabanna worth more than three months of his salary. JC had given it to him as a gift, and Justin had found that he wasn’t any better saying no to this JC than he had been saying no to his own JC.

Watching the awards behind the stage was a different experience than being a guest. He didn’t have a seat up on the stage, and he was to keep track of Chris at all times, since *N Sync was nominated for five awards, they would also hand out the ‘best newcomer video’ award, and perform with the Backstreet Boys. Justin had never been into the rehearsals, so he had no idea what they were going to play. He didn’t even know how *N Sync sounded now because he had been avoiding all their rehearsals in Chris’s house, and listening to any of their records.

He didn’t want to know that he hadn’t written Pop, or Gone.

In a way, it made him realize that, yes, he had a talent for denial. If he could spend more than eight months without even listening to one *N Sync record, he could pretty much imagine a whole life to make up for the one he had apparently forgotten.

*N Sync and the Backstreet Boys were the closing number, so Justin had a lot of time to think about that. He heard bits and pieces of *N Sync’s nominated songs, and was glad to recognize at least Until Yesterday. Even if it was two years before the date he remembered as being when JC wrote it, it did mean that JC kept writing and that was good enough.

The fact that it wasn’t “Sexy Back” or even “Cry Me a River” was better. It gave him some sort of hope that maybe his songs didn’t exist without him around.

Maybe his songs were really **his** and that would meant that his fantasy life wasn’t really a fantasy. That was a dangerous path to tread, but Justin couldn’t stop his mind from going there. The one thing he had always loved far above everything else had been his music.

“Five minutes to *N Sync’s first nomination,” the continuity editor told him, and Justin repeated the instruction on his own radio set, that was connected to Chris’s earpiece. He was getting used to the myriad of activity behind the stage, the one he had never quite paid attention to when he was the one getting the awards.

“Oh, God, it **is** you,” Britney’s voice broke through his thought and Justin turned around quickly to be face to face with his former girlfriend, the girl he had claimed to love for most of his teenage years. “I didn’t believe Chris when he told me.”

“Miss Spears,” Justin managed to say, lowering his eyes. She looked beautiful. “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to create a scene in your house.”

“Chris told me you have amnesia,” Britney said, still studying him. “Is that true?”

“Yes,” Justin explained, feeling embarrassed. He didn’t know how to react, not when the last time he had seen his ex-girlfriend, she had looked scared out of her wits. “I don’t really remember anything before that morning. I’m very sorry for that.”

“It’s all right,” Britney said, walking closer. Like one would do with a scared puppy. “You look much better than that morning, you know?”

“Do I?” Justin asked, frowning. That morning, he had been wearing his favorite pants, and had just come back from a weekend at a spa. Or so he recalled. By all means, he should look worse now that he was actually working. His hands would never look the same after the four months doing dishes at Andy’s. “I… thanks…”

“Sure you do, now you look as if you actually ate something,” Britney smiled, her warm and sincere smile that made you believe she wasn’t that different now that she had millions than back when they had meet in the MMC. The smile with which he had fell in love with.

“Three minutes for *N Sync,” the voice in Justin’s earpiece interrupted, breaking the moment.

“Shit, sorry, I’ve got to work,” Justin said, trying to smile bravely.

“It’s ok, I understand,” Britney said, waving at him. “Maybe later I’ll go to Chris’s house and we can talk. You look very nice now that you’re not being all weird and scary.”

Justin decided to immerse himself in work to not think about what Britney meant with that comment.

* * *

Chris had formed *N Sync when Lou Pearlman told him he wasn’t right for the Backstreet Boys. At least, that was what fifty websites proclaimed, and what every single magazine Justin could find on the subject said. If Justin asked Chris, Chris would just wave the question away and say it had looked like a good idea at the time.

That much was just like Justin remembered.

After the VMAs, Justin had decided to stop letting his fears led his life and started looking for the story of that reality. Britney’s words, telling him that now he looked better, that he looked as if he had fed, were worrying him.

He hadn’t looked at a mirror that day. He was pretty sure he had looked the same as always. But the same nagging voice that told him that maybe his career was a figment of his imagination was now telling him that perhaps, just perhaps, the way he saw himself was not the way everyone else saw him.

And that was a scary thought.

So to drown that voice, he started researching *N Sync’s story, because he had nothing else to do, now that Chris and the guys were back in the recording studio.

According to the websites, the story of *N Sync was pretty much like he remembered except that Chris had reached Joey first, and then Joey had suggested that they invite JC. And that was where his memories and the reality diverged. Apparently, Chris and Howie had never lost touch after college, and so, the Backstreet Boys were very aware of *N Sync’s existence even before the group had a name. So when Pearlman vetoed the idea of a trio, being hellbent on having another five member group, Kevin had commented to Chris that his cousin Brian was a very good singer, and thus, Brian’s phone audition hadn’t been to Pearlman’s board of directors, but to Chris, Joey and JC from a payphone.

Later, Pearlman’s secretary had hunted down the phone number of Lance’s vocal coach, and the rest was history. It had been the same secretary who suggested the name of the group, after a first audition where Chris had insisted that ‘Nameless’ was a good name for them.

What Justin couldn’t find was Pearlman’s secretary’s name. It was as if she hadn’t been important except for the fact that she named the group and brought Lance to them.

Other than that, *N Sync’s early years were very much like what Justin remembered in his own time. The main difference was that the Backstreet Boys never acted upon a made-up rivalry. Instead, *N Sync had started opening the shows for the Backstreet Boys in Europe, Kevin did many interviews about how the groups were different, and Chris had been Brian’s best man at his wedding.

Joey had married in 2001, right after Celebrity was released. AJ had been his best man, right out of rehab.

“Found anything interesting?” Chris’s voice startled him, and Justin almost dropped his glass of water on top of Chris’s laptop. “Or are you just surfing for porn?”

“Chris! I thought you were at the studio!” Justin said, almost immediately regretting the familiarity with which he spoke as Chris frowned.

“Have you noticed that when you’re stressed or distracted you call me Chris, instead of Mr. Kirkpatrick?” Chris asked instead, sitting down. “You could call me just Chris all the time. Make things easier for both of us.”

“Easier for you, I’m sure,” Justin sighed. “But it would make things harder for me, Mr. Kirkpatrick.”

“Why?”

Justin looked at his boss, at his friend, and decided to risk it. He knew now that Chris wouldn’t send him away. This Chris, just like the Chris of his memories, only wanted to help.

“In my other life, we were friends,” Justin whispered. “Best friends. You treated me like a grown up, even though I was just twelve when we met. And then… after years of friendship… I just started to ignore you. I just shut you out of my life.”

He still didn’t mention *N Sync. He just couldn’t.

“So now you call me Mr. Kirkpatrick to remind yourself that’s a lie and to keep your distance?” Chris shook his head, rolling his eyes. “Sorry kid, it doesn’t work like that.”

“What do you mean?” Justin frowned. It sounded logical in his head.

“No matter what went on in your fantasy life, Justin, we’re friends now, right?” Chris asked, waiting to Justin to nod before going on. “And I’m still convinced that if we’re going to find out who you really are and where do you come from, we can find clues in those fake memories of yours. So ignoring them wouldn’t be too good for you anyway.”

“You think we can find out who am I if I tell you everything?” Justin frowned again. While it did sound logical when Chris said it, he was afraid it was just Chris’ way to try and find out more about Justin’s past life.

“It can’t hurt to try, right?”

* * *

Justin told Chris everything about his past life, even his meeting with D, his guardian angel, who had caused the change. He was expecting Chris to laugh, to call him insane or even to force him to call his psychiatrist. What Justin didn’t expect was for Chris to nod.

“It makes sense,” Chris told him. “This girl, D, was your break up point. She made you get out from the fantasy and back into your real life. She made you see that your life was too perfect to be real, and that was what made you break from it.”

“That’s it?” Justin asked, incredulous. “That simple?”

“Well, that, or she really was your guardian angel, you really come from an alternative reality and are just supplanting the Justin Timberlake from this one,” Chris shrugged. “But if that’s the case, wouldn’t you like to know who he really is too?”

Justin blinked, looking at Chris incredulously. And then he couldn’t help himself. He started laughing, laughing so hard that his stomach started to hurt. Because even when the second theory was what he really believed, now that Chris said it out loud it sounded ridiculous.

And it felt great to realize that. It was as if a huge weight was released from his shoulders.

“Right, so… where do we start then?” he asked, once he managed to control his laughter. “Tennessee? My mom’s name?”

“We can start with your parents, yeah,” Chris nodded, logging in to goggle in his laptop. “But we can rule Tennessee out. I mean, when you weren’t ‘on tour’, you lived here, right?”

“Right,” Justin nodded, looking at the screen. It seemed so easy now, even when he was still afraid of knowing the truth.

Unfortunately, there where 567 people with the name ‘Harless’ and 167 ‘Timberlake’. Chris then tried to put both names on the engine, although Justin wasn’t exactly optimistic about that method. If he dared to speak to Lance about his problem, he would have. After all, Lance was the one of his friends who was obsessed with the internet. At least, in his own life.

“Oh, shit,” Chris muttered softly, and Justin turned his attention back to the screen. When he saw the very first link on the page, he paled.

“Click on it,” Justin bit his lip. What he was reading couldn’t be true, and if it was, it couldn’t be about his mom. But he wouldn’t know until he saw a picture. Wordlessly, Chris clicked on the link and the white, red and gray page of the Crime Library opened for them.

“My baby has disappeared” the headline read.

“In a case that shocked the country in 1986, a distraught Lynn Timberlake called 911 in the early hours of November 3rd. In tears, Lynn explained to the operator that her 6 year old son, Justin Randall, had disappeared from his room sometime after 10, when she and her husband, Randall Timberlake, had tucked him in to sleep after a long afternoon of Trick or Treating.”

Under the ominous paragraph, there was a picture Justin recognized well, him, around four, in his mom’s lap. She was smiling brightly, as she always did in front of the camera, but he was more interested in the red truck on his hands. It had been one of the last gifts his father had given him, before things got rough and the divorce happened.

“That’s my mom,” Justin whispered, still shocked. “That’s me.”

“Oh, boy,” Chris shook his head. “I just… Wow.”

“What is it?” Justin looked at him. Chris had finished reading the page until the bottom, while Justin was still lost in the memories of the day his father had given him the toy.

“If you’re Justin Randall Timberlake,” Chris said, very slowly. “You’re dead. They found your body in 1989, and your mom has been in jail for your murder all this time.”


	6. Whose body is it, anyway?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mystery of Justin’s life deepens.

“If you’re Justin Randall Timberlake,” Chris said, very slowly. “You’re dead. They found your body in 1989, and your mom has been in jail for your murder all this time.”

“No, you read wrong.” Justin shook his head, closing his eyes. He could deal with being insane. He could deal with not being famous. Being dead was a little too much to expect him to cope with. “I’m not dead.”

“Obviously.” Chris smiled weakly at him. He also looked pretty shook up at the revelation. “But that means that either you’re not this Justin, or that your mom was wrongly accused.”

“I am Justin Timberlake,” Justin repeated stubbornly. Even if it didn’t mean anything anymore, it was the only thing he had, his name.

“I believe you,” Chris said, still smiling. “But now we’ve got to figure out what that means, right?”

“What that means?” Justin frowned, puzzled.

“Well, either you **really** are this Justin Timberlake, and thus the body they found wasn’t you and your mom has been in jail feeling desperate because she thinks she killed you, or you’re someone else who was raised as Justin Timberlake, and then we have to figure out who you really are.”

“I am…”

“Justin, I know.” Chris hit his shoulder, smiling. “I’m just trying to figure this out, Slim.”

“So what do you think it’s our next step? Do I call the police?”

“I guess. I’ve never been a private investigator… But I guess we could hire one,” Chris began saying, but stopped as Justin started to shake his head in no. “OK, no one else besides us can know, until we know more. Speaking of that, we should read more about the case. If we know what happened then, we can figure out what happened to you. Then we can figure out what to do next.”

Justin nodded, looking back at the black and red web page that related the grizzly story. “It’s a good idea to start, I guess.”

* * *

Crime Library was as gruesome as its name indicated, but Justin read every page related to his mom’s case, as well as the links out from the page. There were 15 sections in the crime library alone, relating everything from Lynn’s frantic call to 911, to the trial itself.

According to the site, after Lynn and her husband had realized that little Justin was missing, a state-wide search had been ordered, trying to find the young boy. But from the beginning, there had been suspicions that not all was as the couple had stated. The house hadn’t been broken into. Whoever who had taken Justin out of the family home had the keys to the door of the house, as every door was closed, and there were no open windows or broken glass.

That alone told the police that whoever had kidnapped the kid was either a friend of the family or someone who had access to the house. As the inquires continued they uncovered the probable reason of Justin’s kidnapping: they found out that even at the early age of five, the boy was being raised to be a child star.

Justin remembered that in his own childhood, although he had never minded. He had wanted to be a star, ever since he could remember and back then his mother support had always made him feel close to her. Seeing how the writer of the site decided to describe Lynn as a shrill stage mother, who seemed to worry more about the fame her five year old son could bring her, he understood how other people saw Lynn, even in his own timeline.

Before they found a body, the police left the Timberlakes alone most of the time, trying to see if any of their activities could bring them closer to the kidnapper. They interviewed Justin’s teachers, his nannies, and all the families in the neighbors, with no results. They even followed a very unlikely clue, when Lynn recalled that she had traveled alone with Justin three months prior to the kidnapping to Orlando. The family was planning to move there to increase Justin’s chances for an early start at fame.

However every single line of investigation went nowhere, until a young girl from Missouri remembered having seen Lynn yell at her son in a local Wendy’s, when she had been traveling with her family. The girl had been waiting at the table while her mother was in the bathroom with her younger brother, and her father kept an eye on her from the family’s car. The girl had been the only one to see Lynn and Justin, or at least, the only one who had paid any attention to the couple. Later, the police compared dates and found out that it had been when Lynn and Justin returned from their trip to Orlando.

“What made me notice them were the kid’s eyes. He had them wide open, and it was as if he really didn’t understand why his mother was so angry,” the girl was quoted as saying. “He looked younger than my brother. And when she said she wished that she had never given birth to him, he didn’t cry. That was the one thing I can clearly remember. He had just heard that horrible thing, and he didn’t cry.”

The girl’s testimony wouldn’t have gotten very far, if the body of a six-year-old kid hadn’t been found near the road between that Wendy’s and the Timberlakes’ house. Although in 1989 DNA testing wasn’t used to identify victims, there was very little doubt that the body was Justin’s. His face had been badly damaged, not only by being buried for three years, but also with a hard blunt object, and his fingers had been cruelly cut off, probably to avoid easy identification, but it was still dressed in the same pajamas Justin had been wearing when he had disappeared

After that, it wasn’t long before the Tennessee D.A. made a case against Lynn, charging her with the murder of her son.

The trial lasted ten days, but the most damaging evidence was the young girl’s testimony. Due to the way in which the website was written, it took fifteen pages before Justin saw the name of the girl who had condemned his mother to jail.

Stacy Bass.

* * *

Justin tried not to let his findings affect his daily life. He convinced Chris not to say anything to Lance about what they both had read about Lynn Timberlake’s trial, arguing that they both needed more time, more information, before doing anything.

After all, there was still the chance that Justin wasn’t really Justin Timberlake, the Justin Timberlake who had been brutally murdered at the tender age of six, and if that was true, there was no reason to bother Lance.

And it worked, for a while, until the group started getting ready for the first leg of their winter tour. Unlike in Justin’s memory, where those meetings were usually held in Jive’s offices, here *N Sync had more relaxed reunions in Chris’s house.

Because, as Chris explained, it was the one house that wasn’t child- or Chris- proofed.

So Justin couldn’t really avoid Lance, and every day, when he saw his former bandmate look at him with suspicion and down-right distaste, he had to bite his lips and try with all his strength not to yell.

But it all came to an end when Chris suggested that Justin should travel with their crew. And Justin had the bad timing of entering the meeting room with everyone’s drinks just as Lance was explaining why that was a bad idea.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Justin said, turning around and hoping not to cause a scene.

“No, Justin. Stay, please.” Chris grabbed Justin’s arm, smiling at him encouragingly. “This is about you, so you should be here while we argue why Lance thinks it’s a good idea to leave you homeless and jobless for two months, and just before Christmas.”

“Don’t make me look as the bad guy on this, Chris,” Lance said, sounding tired. “I’m sure Mr.Timberlake has many relatives in Tenessee he can go and leech from while we’re on tour. We can even give him a lift.”

“I’m not a leech,” Justin said, defensively. There was a limit to the verbal abuse he could take. “I know you have a problem with me Lance, but that gives you no right to act like if I wasn’t fit to lick your boots!”

“I know exactly what you are, Mr. Timberlake, and while I can’t make Chris fire you, I can make sure you don’t spend any more time than necessary around us.” Lance’s voice was cold, just as when he used to get angry at a reporter.

“Lance, that’s a bit too much,” Brian tried to interfere, but Justin interrupted him.

“If you know who am I, why the fuck you don’t tell me?! I have spent the last few month thinking I’m going insane and hen I find out through fucking google that you’ve known all along what’s wrong with me?” Justin yelled, getting close enough to Lance to hit him. The only thing that restrained him was knowing that if he hit Lance, it wouldn’t matter if Chris was his friend, he would end up in jail.

“Wait, whoa, one moment,” JC said, raising his hand in a placating manner. “You knew Justin, Lance?”

“I know he is a fraud,” Lance answered, sounding defiant. “He can’t be Justin Timberlake.”

“Of course he can’t, not if your sister testified at the trial for his murder,” Chris pointed out. It was the worst moment possible to have that conversation, and Justin knew it, but there was no chance of going back now.

“Do you feel as if we walked in the middle of a movie only Chris and Lance have seen?” Joey whispered to Brian, who nodded. “Guys, care to explain what’s going on?”

“It’s up to you, Slim,” Chris said, looking at Justin. “You want to tell them the truth, I’ll back you up.”

Justin looked around, from Chris’s silent support, to Lance’s angry stare. He didn’t know these guys, they weren’t his brothers from his memories. But they were still pretty close to what he remembered, JC, Joey, even Brian although he hadn’t been in *N Sync back then.

“Ok. I’ll explain everything. Although I’m pretty sure they’ll want me sent to the asylum as soon as I finish.”

* * *

“I can’t believe you believe this crap.”

Lance, of course, was the first one to react after Justin told them everything. At first, he had been doubtful, but knowing that Chris still believed in him, Justin had gotten enough confidence to tell his tale. His memories of the other life, how he and JC had been best friends back in the MMC, meeting Chris, and Joey, and finally getting his mom to call Lance when Jason had left them. Everything, including how *N Sync had separated, and his own private life until the day when it had all changed, ad he had found himself without a past, without an identity, in Britney’s house.

“Well, it is hard to believe, I’ll give you that.” JC was, surprisingly, the one who was taking it as if it was perfectly normal to find someone talking about alternate realities and pissed off guardian angels. “But it can be true. What if there are different universes where everything is different?”

“I don’t know, I think it’s more probable that maybe the dead body they found in 1989 wasn’t Justin,” Joey laughed, but he sounded nervous. “Why don’t you go to the police?”

“Because I am not sure of anything,” Justin said, breathing evenly. He didn’t feel the need to hit Lance anymore, but he was feeling exhausted. “I didn’t even know I was supposed to have been murdered until Chris thought of googling my mom’s name.”

“Yeah, right,” Lance half-laughed. “You had a very good sob story ready, didn’t you? Just good enough to get into Chris’s good side. And now you’re just ready to tell me that my family destroyed yours, right?”

“No.” Justin felt his face redden. The worst part for him was that if their positions were reversed, if it was Lance the one coming to them with the crazy story about fake memories, Justin knew he would act exactly as Lance was acting. “As far as I’m concerned, I destroyed my own life. I just want to know who I am. It has nothing to do with you.”

They all looked at Justin, who hadn’t been the center of attention in such a long time that he started to feel uncomfortable. He knew that they were studying him, the crazy homeless guy who swore he was a superstar in another life. To Justin’s own surprise, he found himself missing the simple days when he was just a dishwasher and was getting to forget all about his past life.

“Prove it,” Lance finally said. “Tell me one thing only someone in the group would know, something I would’ve never said to anyone outside this group, and I’ll believe you.”

Justin blinked. It was an easy one, especially as he came from two years in the future. But if he said what he knew, in front of everyone, Lance would hate him more.

“Can you guys leave me and Mr. Bass alone?” Justin asked, softly. “I can answer that, but not if you are here.”

“Why not?” Lance sneered. He looked pretty confident that Justin wouldn’t be able to answer his question.

“Because my world was slightly different than this one, and if I’m wrong, I don’t want you to accuse me again of blackmailing you.” Justin’s voice didn’t waver. The others seemed happy to follow Chris’s lead, so he only had to convince Lance. Which was, somehow, a blessing, because he didn’t know anything about Brian.

Chris shook his head and walked out, without saying a word. It made Justin feel better, because it was the way Chris showed his confidence in him.

“Don’t kill Slim, Lance,” Joey said, grabbing Lance’s shoulder before leaving, followed by JC who smiled at them both. Brian followed, looking sad. But Justin didn’t know him well enough to decide if Brian was sad for Lance or for Justin.

“We’re alone,” Lance said after a moment. “Now talk.”

“You’re gay,” Justin said breathing evenly. “But none of the guys know. In my world, Joey said later he was the first one to know, when he walked on you and one of your friends, but that wasn’t true. You tried to tell me first. In the very first tour, you were nervous about everything, and you asked me what would happen later. I told you that the press and girls would be all over us. Then you asked me what would happen if one of us had a big secret that the press shouldn’t learn. I told you, laughing, that then the press better didn’t find out. Much later I realized what it was all about, and I’ve felt guilty ever since.”

Lance had gone very quiet, and for a second, Justin feared he had said the wrong thing. Maybe this Lance wasn’t gay, or maybe he had come out so long ago that it was no longer an issue and that was why no one mentioned it. Either way, Justin feared he had lost his one chance to convince his former bandmate.

“I shared rooms with Brian,” Lance said, slowly. “But I didn’t tell him anything. I just debated about it all night, didn’t sleep at all. I haven’t had a boyfriend in my whole life, because I know it will affect the band.”

“So Joey never walked in on you and a friend?” Justin frowned. That was a very definite difference from his memories, one that couldn’t have anything to do with him.

“Never.” Lance shook his head. “This is the first time I’ve discussed the possibility of a boyfriend in my life.”

“You could’ve denied it,” Justin offered. “Only I would know the difference, and who would believe me over you?”

“I would know,” Lance whispered. Then, he looked straight into Justin’s eyes. “Ok. You convinced me. What’s next?”

* * *

If anyone in the group was curious about what Justin told Lance to convince him of his sincerity, Justin wouldn’t know because no one asked. He kept his mouth shut, because unless Lance said anything in front of the others, he was going to honor Lance’s trust. Justin felt that he owed his Lance that much.

On the other hand, there wasn’t much to work on to find about Justin’s past. They agreed that Justin would travel with them, so they could work on what to do in their free time. Justin was still reluctant to contact any authority or an external detective, and surprisingly, Lance agreed with him.

“We should at least know a little more about the case, and maybe try and figure out where Justin was before he appeared in Britney’s house,” Lance explained. “And can you really imagine any detective who won’t go with whatever he finds to the tabloids? Until there’s a bit more than just Justin’s faulty memory, we should avoid the press frenzy.”

“Lance is right,” Chris said while he played with his new Gameboy. “Justin and I have saved all the files we have found about the Timberlake case. If you guys want we can lend them to you.”

“So we’re actually going to try and solve this mystery? “ Brian sounded amused.

“On the tour bus,“ JC laughed at the idea. “It will be like *N Sync and the Mystery Machine.”

“I’m Fred then!” Joey called, rising his hand. “He gets all the chicks.”

“So Lance is Velma?” Brian asked, smiling. “He’s the smart one.”

“I’m Daphne,“ Lance deadpanned. ”After all, I have a sense of fashion. JC is Velma. No one understands him until the very end.“

“Wait a second!” Chris asked, pausing his game. “Does that mean I’m Shaggy? No way. I’m Scooby! He’s the main character, after all.”

“I can’t be Shaggy,” Justin said, feeling like old times, when they used to joke around the tour bus. “I’m the guy who called you because he needed help. We need a Shaggy.”

“My cousin can be Shaggy,” Brian joked, making everyone laugh. “He’s the only one strong enough to lift Chris’s fat ass.”

Amidst the laughter, Justin realized that it was the first time since he had started working for Chris that he felt like a friend with the guys.


	7. From a different point of view

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justin starts asking questions, and facing some painful truths.

Touring with the group was completely different as a roadie than as part of the band, just like Justin expected. There were also very subtle differences between how **his** *N Sync used to tour, and how this *N Sync toured.

For instance, they had five buses, Backstreet Boys’ style. The logic behind it, as Chris explained it one day, was that the less time they spend together, the less likely they were to end up wanting to kill each other by the time the tour was over. And, if any of them felt incredibly lonely, they could also ride with the others. Each bus had three beds.

Lieghanne and Baylee rode with Brian, as Lieghanne didn’t want Brian to miss any of their kid’s infancy. Kelly and Brianna would join Joey from time to time, as Bri went to school in Orlando, so she didn’t had the luxury to stay with daddy all the time. This also left JC, Chris and Lance with the freedom to bring their own girlfriends along if they wanted.

Which was why everyone was surprised when Lance proposed that Justin could ride with him.

“I can ride with the crew, there’s no need to make space for me in your buses,” Justin had argued. He was still trying to distance himself from the life he remembered and he was sure that riding with Lance was not the way to go.

“It makes more sense if you are with one of us,” Lance countered. “So we can continue the investigation.”

“It would make more sense for him to go in my bus, since he’s **my** assistant,” Chris said, although he was smiling. Justin thought that it was because, until very recently, Lance had been the one who was vocal against Justin being with them. “But I can lend him to you.”

“Gee, thanks, Mr. Kirpatrick,” Justin had been ordering Chris’s fan mail during the exchange, but the truth was that he felt grateful now that Lance wasn’t acting as if Justin would try and kill them on their sleep. “That’s awfully nice from you.”

Justin didn’t remember the last time he had shared a bus only with Lance. When the group had managed to have enough money for two buses, Justin had almost always chosen to ride with Chris and JC. Two days in the road, he realized that while he would’ve hated to share the space with Lance back in the old days, it was quite pleasant now. Unlike Chris, who would chose the weirdest moment to start questioning his old memories; Lance was more interested in the last six months of Justin’s life and never pried unless Justin volunteered information. JC made him nervous, since every now and then; he would be watching Justin with a very strange expression in his face, almost as if he was studying him.

And Justin still didn’t know how to deal with Brian, or with the fact that apparently in this reality, the Backstreet Boys and *N Sync were best friends. Even if he tried to forget that little tidbit of information, one of the Boys would call. Usually it was Kevin, as he was Brian’s cousin, but Nick, Howie, AJ and Sam would do the same. And since none of the other guys had personal assistants, Justin had somehow been promoted from Chris’s assistant to *N Sync’s assistant. He now carried seven cellphones with him at all times, and knew every secretary at Jive by name, as well as everyone in the crew and in the guys’ houses.

However, as happy as he was now, there was still the nagging issue that they weren’t any closer to solve anything.

Which was probably why Brian had called for a special meeting on his bus on the day they were just on the road, without any interview or show to attend to. He had asked Justin to buy a white board in the last city they had been in, and now said board was hung proudly over the bus’s wall. On it, Brian had written “Justin” with big black bold letters.

“The way I see it,” Brian said, as he keep writing on the board. “We’ve got two possibilities… We can’t ignore the whole ‘alternate universe’ idea just because it sounds ridiculous.”

“I wish we could,” Justin looked at the first column Brian had created, with just A.R. written on top. “I’m starting to think that means I’m just crazy.”

“If we can prove its wrong, with more than just ‘alternative realities’ don’t exist’, it might help us to figure out **why** you created that complicated fantasy,” Chris shrugged. “The other possibility is that the dead body isn’t Justin Timberlake, right?”

“Right,” Brian nodded as he wrote ‘Mom’s innocent’ on the top of the second column. “I don’t think someone would kidnap a kid and then make his believe he’s another dead kid who had half the country looking for his killer. So that one is out unless we run out of ideas. So… any pros or cons to both theories?”

“What’s a ‘pro’ for the Alternative Reality theory?” Joey asked. “Anything he remembers that it’s different? Because that also works for the ‘Justin is insane’ theory.”

“Things he knows, that are true, but there was no way for him to know,” Lance answered, looking serious. “Like how he knows I’m gay.”

Brian wrote ‘Lance’s secret’ on the first column. After Justin had told Lance that he knew, and that in **his** memories **everyone** had supported him, Lance had decided to come out at least to the group. He said he wasn’t ready for anyone else to know, which Justin could understand perfectly. Things were different here from the time when Lance had come out to People, two years in the future according to his memories, and even **his** Lance had always worried that his sexuality would be an issue for the group.

“Did you guys ever record a song named Pop?” Justin bit his lip. He still had not heard the whole *N Sync discography, making excuses over it all the time, but if they were trying to help him, and Lance could share his biggest secret, he could face his fears.

“No, why? Is it one of the songs you remember recording with us?” Chris frowned. Justin had vaguely told him that he and JC used to write songs together, but he had never gone very deeply into the subject.

“It’s a song Wade and I wrote,” Justin shrugged. “We recorded it for Celebrity.”

“Wade can’t write his own grocery list and make it rhyme, Justin,” Joey laughed. “He’s a great choreographer, but that’s about the extent of his talent.”

“What other songs you wrote?” Brian asked, as he wrote ‘Pop’ on the ‘A.R.’ column.

“JC and I co-wrote Celebrity… but that one was mostly JC’s work,” Justin said. Since *N Sync’s third album was still named Celebrity, he figured that song existed. “Gone… and then a couple extra for my own albums. But those were the ones I wrote for *N Sync.”

“I wrote Celebrity with Chris,” JC confirmed Justin’s suspicions. “But I’ve never heard a song named Gone.”´

“You’ve got to show us those songs one of this days, Slim,” Chris clapped him on the shoulder. “But I’m not sure we can count those as proof of an alternative reality, Brian. Since it’s something *he* did, not something we kept a secret from everyone.”

In the end, the Alternative Reality column ended up with only six items besides Lance’s secret. The second item, after a long discussion, was ‘Can write songs and knows our first four tours by heart’. Third was ‘knows how Chris *really* broke his hand’, and below that, written with Joey’s handwriting ‘the real reason why Jason left’. The last two items were prefaced by an asterisk, as they hadn’t happen yet but Justin was so sure that they would that Brian agreed to put them in. If they happened, they would be considered evidence, and if they didn’t, they could be erased. The first one was ‘Reichen’, the second was ‘Kim’.

The other column was shorter. ‘Body not identified by DNA’ was the first, as the dead body everyone said was little Justin had been identified by its clothes and dental records, but Brian insisted that those could be faked. ‘No Motive’ was put by Justin’s insistence that his mother would never kill him no matter what. But that was all they had at the moment, which made the list pitifully short.

“We really have to start looking in that case, right?” JC said, after a few moments of silence while the whole group looked at the list. “Or looking for any scientist with a theory about alternative realities…”

* * *

One thing that hadn’t changed from the world he remembered to this one was the charged atmosphere at the group’s concerts.

The first time Justin had seen one, he hadn’t believed his eyes. While they weren’t as choreography heavy as they had been back in 2001, probably in consideration to Chris’s knees, they still had enough to make Justin feel tired just by watching them. As the group didn’t use back up dancers –and in this reality they never had, yet another difference for the growing list Justin kept in his head- they still did some of the stomps and jumps and spins Justin remembered so well, he could do them in his sleep. They still sang some of their oldest hits, like Tearing Up My Heart, God Must Have Spent, Girlfriend, and of course, Bye, Bye, Bye, that now instead of closing the show, was the song right before the encore. Then there were JC’s songs, All Day Long, Some Girls, Until Yesterday, and even some Chris’s songs that were much better than Falling had been.

The group also sounded different, because even if Brian had taken Justin’s place, he hadn’t quite gotten all his parts. JC and Chris got those, and it was probably the most painful part because some of the songs sounded so much like the versions Justin remembered that if he closed his eyes, he could easily loose himself to his fantasy world again.

Not that he had told the others that he was almost convinced that the *other* world had been just a fantasy.

It **had** to be. Even if he remembered the Grammys, the fame and everything, it made more sense for him to have made up the whole thing than having been kidnapped to another reality by a foul tempered guardian angel.

Because if **he** believed that his fantasy life had been real, then he also had to admit that his mere existence had ruined his friend’s lives. Judging by the obvious changes, the fact that he was alive was the only reason why *N Sync wasn’t a successful group in 2005.  
And that was a very depressing thought.

“Slim?” Dre called his attention as the guys started the second half of the concert. Usually, at that time Justin had nothing to do, unless someone needed Chris’s agenda. “Theresa’s looking for you.”

“I’m going down,” Justin sighed. Even back in his own world, he had never liked meeting with the PR agents, and Theresa was the one that made Justin fear them. She was good at her job, too good, and was one of the few people that made Justin feel as if he was 10 again, waiting for his mom to tell him what he had done wrong in the latest audition and how his career was going nowhere if he didn’t shape up.

Funny how even when now his career was basically babysitting Chris, he still was expecting someone to tell him he was doing it wrong.

“Mrs. Rourke? Dre told me you were looking for me.” Justin braced himself. He was fairly confident that his clothes, his hair, and his lack of love life were not Theresa’s business, so there was no reason for him to be afraid of her.

Unless someone had decided that he was dating Lance, since he slept in the same bus, in which case he still was innocent and she couldn’t yell at him. It was one advantage of not being famous, and he kept repeating that in his head as the petite woman turned to see him with an angry scowl on her face and a newspaper in her right hand.

“Mr. Timberlake, there’s a situation we must deal with immediately,” she said, and déjà vu hit Justin so hard that for a moment he feared he would faint again. It was the exact same tone that she had used when Justin had slipped in an interview and confessed that he and Britney were sexually active. It was even the same suit she had been wearing back then.

“I’ll do whatever I can to help.” Justin breathed deeply as he kept chanting to himself that there was nothing he had done since he had woke up from his delusions that could interest Theresa.

“Start by explaining this,” Theresa handed him the newspaper, a supermarket tabloid like the ones Diana used to read in her breaks. He only needed to see the first page to see the problem, as it proclaimed that *N Sync had hired Britney Spears’ stalker. Which was, at least for the perspective of this reality, sort of true but Justin couldn’t tell that to Theresa. Even with half the story, Theresa would kill him and Chris.

“I wasn’t stalking her,” he answered, trying to keep his tone calm. “I was very confused that day; I had drunk a lot… I don’t even really remember how I got into her house. And it was months before I even met Chris. Whatever this rag says, it’s a lie.”

Theresa didn’t seem convinced, but even so she nodded. “Very well. It still isn’t an issue, so I’ll let it pass for now. But you better start thinking if you did anything else before being hired by Mr. Kirkpatrick that might end up in the tabloids, and warm me before hand.”

“Sure, Ms. Rourke,” Justin nodded, hoping to sound a lot surer than what he felt. “But I honestly can’t think of anything.”

“I’ll believe you,” Theresa said, turning away. “And read that article; tell me if they got anything right.”

* * *

The newspaper lay forgotten for a couple of days, as Justin suddenly saw exactly why everyone had warned him about being Chris’s assistant.  
When they were in Florida, Chris’s schedule was pretty laid back. He had a few interviews, most of the studio time was fixed, and that was about it. Answering phone calls and reminding Chris of those very few appointments was pretty easy, and sorting the fan mail was the most complicated part of Justin’s evenings. But on the road, there were interviews, photo opportunities, meet and greets, more interviews, sound checks, phone calls, group meetings, and Chris tended to forget those.

That was a big difference from what Justin remembered. His Chris was usually more organized, at least, that was Justin had always thought after seeing him organize Fuman Skeeto at the same time as they toured. This Chris hadn’t done Fuman, hadn’t even dated Danielle, as far as Justin had managed to dig from magazines since he didn’t want to ask the guys much about their love lives, and that seemed to be a big difference.

Although sometimes Justin suspected that Chris was just doing that so his “assistant” would be busy and no one would ask him why he had hired one. It wasn’t like Lance, who had managed to keep Freelance working, and was producing two movies –although he had passed on On the Line, that in this reality had never been made- and still didn’t seem to need an assistant. Even if Justin now helped a bit, Lance seemed to be quite capable of handling things on his own.

The work meant that Justin had barely time to think about his problems, although it also offered him the chance to get to know the group a bit better, to learn everything that the magazines didn’t told him, and to try and figure out how the pieces fit with his memories.

It had been Brian’s idea.

“Way I see it, if you’re not from another word, there has to be a way to figure out how you know all that you know about us,” Brian had said once during lunch, when JC and Chris were busy writing, Lance was doing some projects for Freelance and Joey was on the phone with Brianna and Kelly.

“Things like how you were supposed to be with the Backstreet Boys?” Justin asked, determined to not let his old dislike for the other group to get in the way of his new life. He had to get to know Brian, accept his offering of friendship for what it was. “That’s in a lot of magazines and all the books about both groups.”

“True,” Brian shrugged. “But there are other things you know. So, tell me, what do you know about me?”

“Not much,” Justin answered, thoughtful. “I mean, you were in the rival band, so I really didn’t pay much attention to what was going on in your life. I knew about your wedding, and your cousin’s, because, well, everyone knew about those… and AJ going into rehab, Nick’s girlfriends… but not much about you as a person.”

“My cousin’s wedding?” Brian looked confused. “How do you know about that?”

“It was everywhere? It was a big event, since no one believed a boybander could get married without losing their fanbase, let alone two.” Now Justin was the one confused. While it was true that he hadn’t looked much into the Backstreet Boys’s history, he was pretty sure he had seen news about a Backstreet wedding when he was reading up on the past.

“What was his bride’s name?”

“Kristen,” Justin answered automatically. He even remembered Kristen from one of Zomba/Jive’s many parties. “Tall, blonde. She’s an actress. What’s wrong, Brian?”

Brian looked at Justin, as if he was studying him. “My cousin was going to marry, back in 2000. But then he and his girlfriend had a fight, and everything was cancelled. Her name was never mentioned to the press and the wedding plans were only known by our family and a few people at Transcon. So how could you find out?”

* * *

After talking to Brian, Justin waited until he could clear his head before going to talk with the others. His conversation with Brian had left him more confused than ever, because he couldn’t figure out where his subconscious could’ve picked up the fact that Kevin and Kristen were going to marry long enough to make them a couple in his weird fantasy life.

Two days after that particular revelation, he decided to see if Lance had a couple of minutes to spare from his busy schedule.

“I’m sorry about your sister.” Seconds after saying that, Justin realized that it was exactly the wrong way to start a conversation with Lance. “I mean… you said that the Timberlake were making her life hell.”

Lance closed up his laptop, smiling sadly.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, and Justin was relieved because he didn’t hear any sarcasm on his voice. “Unless you are alive just to spite her.”

“Not really, I liked her. I mean… you know,” Justin finished lamely, not sure of how to express himself. Trying to forget the last 27 years of his life was confusing.

“You have met her?” Lance raised an eyebrow, the way he usually did when he didn’t believe Justin’s stories.

“We went to visit your family more than once, back in Jackson,” Justin looked down, feeling more than a little ashamed. “Diane… I mean, Mrs. Bass, she helped us a lot back in Europe when she found out that my mom hadn’t accompanied us that first tour… if it wasn’t for her… who knows.”

“You remember my mother going to Europe after we already had started touring?” Lance turned on his laptop again, and Justin figured that he was opening the excel document where he had copied Brian’s board ‘just to be safe’. “How long had we been in Europe before she came on board?”

“I’m not sure… three weeks or so? We were in Munich. You called her I think, but later I heard her and my mom arguing about the arrangements.” Justin remembered that argument very well. It was the one time his mom had backed down about the group. After that, Lynn hadn’t left the group until they had left Transcon. “Please tell me that I just didn’t stumble into another of those dark secrets that no one was supposed to know.”

“Sorry, Slim, you did.” Lance started typing. “Obviously, she never met your mom but she had a huge fight with Lou’s secretary. We never mentioned that to the press, we always said that she came with us since the beginning instead of after that fight.”

Justin nodded, immersed in thought. He was sure there was a pattern right there, but he still didn’t have enough pieces to figure out what it was.

* * *

Talking to Joey proved to be more difficult, as he was always busy with his family and Justin was not going to make him take time away for that just to confirm that he probably knew something about Joey’s life that he wasn’t supposed to know. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure of how to deal with JC, because if he went with the idea that somehow he had fixated on *N Sync to create his fantasy life, JC was at the center of it.

After all, he remembered meeting JC when he was only thirteen, long before he met everyone else.

Chris was a little easier to talk to, because he let Justin talk at his own pace and never judged him, not when he was putting together his fantasy life, or when he was trying to forget it. But even so, there were things that Justin couldn’t quite tell him.

One thing Justin had learned to do ever since his world turned upside down was to stall for time. And when he had ran out of things to do and errands to run, he finally sat down and decided to read the tabloid that Theresa had gave him weeks ago.

The cover was pretty much what one expected of those things. One very grainy picture that looked like if it had been taken out of the Spears’ security cameras and that showed a vaguely human form being carried away by two other shadows that could be cops to the right, and the only thing that made Justin think that maybe the human form was him was the grayish color of the shirt. To the other side, there was a picture of him with his cell phone belt talking to Chris outside the *N Sync bus, probably taken a couple of weeks ago. Nothing to write home about, and Justin couldn’t figure out why Theresa was so worried about the article. Except that the picture looked photoshopped, as Justin could see his left arm very clearly and his cross tattoo was missing. Why would anyone delete an intern tattoo, it was anyone’s guess.

But the real shock came in the interior pages. The text was one of the usual drabble, where they didn’t really say anything of substance but managed to make it all sound really sleazy, accusing him of “probably” stalking Spears for months before getting caught and then faking his records to “integrate” himself in *N Sync just to get closer to help. Nothing even close to the truth, unless they knew something Justin didn’t about the months prior to his arrest. But there was another picture that made Justin pause. It was a mug shot, **Justin’s** mug shot according to the text, but he looked wrong. His face was too thin, his eyes looked haunted and there were deep bags under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept for days before the photo was taken, his beard was barely shaven, and his hair was long and dirty.

Although he didn’t want to believe that evidence, he understood why Britney had been scared of him especially if he looked like that.

Trembling, he cut the picture carefully and went out to look for Chris. On the way out of the bus he stopped and went back to the bathroom, wanting to check something. Trying to calm his breathing, he took off his shirt and looked at his body in the full length mirror that Lance had on the door of the bathroom of the bus.

There weren’t any tattoos on his arms or back.


End file.
